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VOLUME X
Number
DECEMBER
1936
A STREET & SMITH PUBLICATION
Two-part Novel:
Table of Contents
Novel:
Novelette
Short Stor
E FLAM!
So small
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Cover Painting by Howard V. Brown
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TRYST in TIME
Science opens the portals
to the only real adventures !
by C. L. MOORE
ERIC ROSXER at twenty had
worked his way round the world
on cattle boats, killed his first
man in a street brawl in Shanghai, es¬
caped a firing squad by a hairbreadth,
stowed away on a pole-bound exploring
ship.
At twenty-five he had lost himself in
Siberian wilderness, led a troup of
Tatar bandits, commanded a Chinese
regiment, fought in a hundred battles,
impartially on either side.
At thirty there was not a continent
nor a capital that had not known him,
not a jungle nor a desert nor a moun¬
tain range that had not left scars upon
his great Viking body. Tiger claws and
the Russian knout, Chinese bullets and
the knives of savage black warriors in
African forests had written their tales
of a full and perilous life upon him. At
thirty he looked backward upon such
a gorgeous, brawling, color-splashed ca¬
reer as few men of sixty can boast. Rut
at thirty he was not content.
Life had been full for him, and yet
as the years passed he was becoming
increasingly aware of a need for some¬
thing which those years were empty of.
What it was he did not know. He was
not even consciously aware of missing
anything, but as time went on he turned
more and more to a search for some¬
thing new — anything new. Perhaps it
was his subconscious hunting blindly for
what life had lacked.
There was so very little that Eric
Rosner had not done in his thirty riotous
years that the search for newness rapidly
became almost feverish, and almost in
vain. Riches he had known, and pov¬
erty, much pleasure and much pain, and
the extremes of human experience were
old tales to him. Ennui replaced the zest
for living that had sent him so gayly
through the exultant years of his youth.
And for a man like Eric Rosner ennui
was like a little death.
Perhaps, in part, all this was because
he had missed love. No girl of all the
girls that had kissed him and adored
him and wept when he left them had
mattered a snap of the fingers to Eric
Rosner. He searched on restlessly.
In this mood of feverish hunting for
new things, he met the scientist, Walter
Dow. It happened casually, and they
might never have met a second time had
not Eric said something offhand about
the lack of adventure which life had to
offer a man. And Dow laughed.
“What do you know about adven¬
ture?” he demanded. He was a little
man with a shock of prematurely white
hair and a face that crinkled into lines
of derision as he laughed. “You've
spent your life among dangers and gun¬
fire — sure ! But that's not real adven¬
ture. Science is the only field where
true adventure exists. I mean it ! The
things that are waiting to be discovered
offer fields of excitement like nothing
you ever heard of. One man in a life¬
time couldn’t begin to touch the edges
of what there is to know. I tell you
I - ”
“Oh, sure," interrupted Eric lazily.
“I see what you mean. But all that’s
11
Choked with terror, Eric swung up his gun hand. The report sent the
strange people to their knees in terror.
12
ASTOUNDING STORIES
not for me. I’m a man of action; I
haven't any brains. Hunching over a
microscope isn’t my idea of fun.”
THE ARGUMENT that began then
developed into a queer sort of antago¬
nistic friendship which brought the two
men together very often in the weeks
that passed. But they were to know
one another much more intimately than
that before the true urgency of what lay
in the minds of each became clear to
the other.
Walter Dow had spent a lifetime in
the worship of one god — inertia. “There
is a bedrock.” he used to say reverently,
“over which the tides of time ebb and
flow, over which all things material and
immaterial, as the layman sees them,
change and fade and form again. But
the bedrock remains. Complete inertia!
What couldn’t we do if we attained it !”
“And what,” asked Eric, “is inertia?”
Dow shot him a despairing glance.
“Everybody knows what inertia is.
Newton’s first law of motion is the law
of inertia, stating that every body re¬
mains in a state of rest or of uniform mo¬
tion in a straight line unless impressed
forces change it. That’s what makes
people in a moving car swerve to one
side when the car goes round a bend.
It’s what makes it so difficult for a horse
to start a heavy load moving, though
once it’s in motion the strain eases.
There’s nothing that doesn’t obey the
law — nothing !
“But Newton didn't dream what
measureless abysses of force lay behind
his simple statement. Or what an un¬
derstatement it was. Describing inertia
oy stating Newton’s law is like describ¬
ing the sea by saying there’s foam on
the waves. The inertia force is inherent
in everything, just as there’s moisture
in everything. But behind that inertia,
manifest so obscurely in matter, is a
vastness of power much greater com¬
paratively than the vastnesses of the seas
which are the storehouses for the rela¬
tively tiny amounts of moisture in every¬
thing you see.
“I can't make you understand; you
don't speak the language. And I some¬
times wonder if I could explain even
to another physicist all that I’ve dis¬
covered in the past ten years. But I
do very firmly believe that it would be
possible to anchor to that bedrock of
essential, underlying inertia which is the,
base upon which matter builds and —
and allow time itself to whirl by!”
“Yeah, and find yourself floating in
space when you let go.” Eric grinned.
“Even I’ve heard that the universe is
in motion through space. I don't know
about time, but I’m pretty sure space
would block your little scheme.”
"I didn’t mean you’d have to — to dig
your anchor right into the rock," ex¬
plained Dow with dignity. “It’d be a
sort of a drag to slow you down, not
a jerk that would snatch you right off
the Earth. And it’d involve — immensi¬
ties — even then. But it could be done.
It will be done. By Heaven, I’ll do it !”
Eric’s sunburned face sobered.
“You’re not kidding?” he asked. “A
man could — could drag his anchor and
let time go by, and ‘up-anchor’ in an¬
other age ? Say ! Make me an anchor,
and I’ll be your guinea pig !”
Dow did not smile.
“That's the worst of it,” he said. “All
this is pure theory and will have to re¬
main that, in spite of all I’ve bragged.
It would be absolutely blind experiment¬
ing, and the very nature of the ele¬
ment I’m experimenting with precludes
any proof of success or failure. I could
— to be frank with you I have — sent ob¬
jects out through time - ”
“You have!” Eric leaned forward
with a jerk and laid an urgent hand on
Dow’s arm. “You really have?”
“Well, I’ve made them vanish. I
think it proves I’ve succeeded, but I
have no way of knowing. The chances
are countless millions to one against my
landing an experiment in my own im-
TRYST IN TIME
13
mediate future, with all the measure¬
less vastness of tiniq^ying open. And,
of course, I can’t guide it.”
“Suppose you landed in your own
past?” queried Eric.
Dow smiled.
“The eternal question,” he said. "The
inevitably objection to the very idea of
time travel. Well, you never did, did
you? You know it never happened!
I think there must be some inflexible
law which forbids the same arrangement
of matter, the pattern which is one's
self, from occupying the same space
time more than once. As if any given
section of space time were a design in
which any arrangement of atoms is pos¬
sible, except that no pattern may appear
exactly twice.
“You see, we know of time only
enough to be sure that it’s far beyond
any human understanding. Though I
think the past and the future may be
visited, which on the face of it seems
to predicate an absolutely preordained
future, a fixed and unchangeable past —
yet I do not believe that time is arbitrary.
There must be many possible futures.
The one we enter upon is not the only
way. Have you ever heard that theory
explained? It’s not a new one — the
idea that at every point of our progress
we confront crossroads, with a free
choice as to which we take. And a
different future lies down each.
“I can transport you into the past,
and you can create events there which
never took place in the past we know —
but the events are not new. They were
ordained from the beginning, if you took
that particular path. You are simply em¬
barking upon a different path into a dif¬
ferent future, a fixed and preordained
future, yet one which will be strange to
you because it lies outside your own
layer of experience. So you have infinite
freedom in all your actions, yet every¬
thing you can possibly do is already
fixed in time.”
“Why, then — then there’s no limit to
the excitement a man could find in navi¬
gating time,” said Eric almost rever¬
ently. And then in sudden urgency,
“Dow, you've got to fix it up for me!
This is what I’ve been hunting!”
“Are you crazy, boy? This is noth¬
ing that can ever lx: proved safe except
by the actual experiment, and the ex¬
periment could never return. You know
that, don't you? From what blind grop¬
ing I've done, it seems to me that time
is not a constant flow, but an ebb and
flux that can't be measured. It would
be hard to explain to you. But you
couldn't return— couldn’t guide your¬
self. You wouldn’t dare try it!”
“I'm fed up with certainty and
safety! And as for returning, what
have I here to return to? No, you can’t
scare me. I’ve got to try it!”
“Absolutely no,” said Dow firmly.
BUT three months later he was stand¬
ing under the great skylight of his labo¬
ratory, watching Eric buckle a flat metal
pack on his heavy young shoulders.
Though reluctance still lined the sci¬
entist’s face, under its shock of white
hair he was alight almost as hotly as
the younger man, with the tremendous
adventure of what was about to happen.
It had taken weeks of persuasion and
argument, and he was not wholly at
ease even yet about the experiment, but
the fever that burned in Eric Rosner
was not to be denied.
Now that the way was open, it seemed
to Eric that all his life he had lived
toward this moment in the laboratory.
The need for this launching upon time’s
broad river was what had driven him
restless and feverish through the petty
adventures which life had shown him.
Peace was upon him now for the first
time in months. There was something
rather awe-inspiring about it.
“Look here,” broke in Walter Dow
upon the raptness of his mood. “Are
you sure you understand?”
“I don’t understand anything about
14
ASTOUNDING STORIES
the works, and I don’t much care,” said
Eric. “All I know is I’m to snap these
switches here” — he laid big sunburned
hands on the two rods at his belt —
“when I want to move along. That will
throw out the anchor. Right?”
“As far as it goes, yes. That will
increase your inertia sufficiently to make
you immune to time and space and mat¬
ter. You will be inert mentally and
physically. You’ll sink down, so to
speak, to the bedrock, while time flows
past you. I have in this pack on your
back, connecting with the switches in the
belt, the means to increase your inertia
until no outside force can interrupt it.
And a mechanism there will permit the
switches to remain thrown until one
small part, insulated from the inertia
in a tiny time space of its own, trips
the switches again and up-anchors. And
if my calculations are correct — and I
think they are — there you’ll be in some
other age than ours. You can escape
from it by throwing the switches again
and returning to inertia, to be released
after an interval by the automatic in¬
sulated mechanism in your pack. Got
it?”
“Got it!” Eric grinned all over his
good-looking, sunburned face. “Every¬
thing ready now?”
“Yes — yes, except that — are you sure
you want to risk it? This may be
plain murder, boy! I don’t know what
will happen!”
“That’s the beauty of it — not know¬
ing. Don't worry, Walter. Call it sui¬
cide, not murder, if that helps you any.
I’m going now. Good-by.”
Dow choked a little as he gripped the
younger man’s hand hard, but Eric’s
face was shining with the fever to be
gone, and at the last the scientist was
almost reconciled by the sight of that
rapt face. Almost he saw in the last
instant before the switches closed a pur¬
pose vaster than his own, sweeping the
work of his hands and the exultant
young man before him into a whole that
fulfilled some greater need than he could
guess.
Then Eric’s hands dropped to his belt.
One last instant he stood there, tall
under the clear radiance of the skylight,
blond and sunburned, the tale of his
riotous, brawling life clear upon his
scarred, young face, but upon it, too, a
raptness and an eagerness that sent a
quick stab of unreasoning hope through
the scientist’s mind. Surely success
would crown this experiment. Surely
all the vital, throbbing aliveness, the
strength and seasoned toughness of this
brawny young man before him could
not snuff into nothing as the switches
closed. Danger awaited him — yes, dan¬
ger against which the gun at his belt
might not avail at all. But splendor,
too. Splendor - Envy clouded
Dow’s eyes for a moment, as the
switches closed.
II.
PAST ERIC’S EYES eternity ebbed
blindingly. Rushing blankness closed
over him, but he was conscious of infi¬
nite motion, infinite change passing over
him, by him, through him, as events be¬
yond imagination streamed past that
anchorage in inertia's eternal bedrock.
For a timeless eternity it lasted. And
then — and then -
A confusion of noises from very far
away began to sound in his ears. That
rushing blurriness abated and slowed and
by degrees took on a nebulous shape.
He was looking down from a height
of about thirty feet upon a street scene
which he identified roughly as Eliza¬
bethan by the costumes of those who
moved through the crowd below him.
Something was wrong. The machine
could not have worked perfectly some¬
how, for he did not feel that he was
actually preseut. The scene was uncer¬
tain and wavery, like a faulty film re¬
flecting upon an uneven screen. There
must have been an obstruction some-
TRYST IN TIME
15
where in that particular time section,
though what it was he never knew.
He leaned forward for a few min¬
utes, looking down eagerly through the
hazy uncertainty that shrouded the
place. He did not seem to himself to
be resting on anything ; yet he was con¬
scious of that forward bending as he
looked down. It was inexplicable.
The noises rose up to him now loudly,
now softly, from the shifting, pushing
throng. Shopkeepers bawled their
wares from both sides of the street.
Apprentice boys darted to and fro
through the crowd, waylaying pass¬
ers-by.
A girl in a scarlet cloak flung open a
window and leaned out to wave a mes¬
sage to some one below, her bright hair
falling about her face. In the room be¬
hind her, dimly seen, another girl
moved forward and flung both arms
about her waist, laughing, dragging her
back. Their merriment rose clearly to
Eric’s ears.
But all this was not real. That cloudi¬
ness hazed it over time and again, until
his eyes ached from trying to follow
what was happening. Regretfully, he
reached for the switches at his belt, and
in a breath the whole place shimmered
and vanished. Oblivion in a torrent
poured over him as the centuries
plunged by over the bedrock inertia to
which he was anchored.
The automatic workings of the time
machine on his shoulders clicked on.
Then the switches threw themselves and
the blankness cleared from Eric's mind
again. He found himself staring
through a screen of leaves upon a grassy
meadow through which tickled a small
brook. He was tangibly, actually here
this time, standing on soft turf and
feeling stir of a breeze through the
leaves.
Over the slope of the meadow be¬
fore him dingy white sheep moved
slowly. A little curly-haired boy in a
brief leather garment leaned on the grass
drowsily, watching them. Sun lay
yellow over the whole scene. It was
peaceful and dreamy as an idyl, but
for some obscure reason Eric’s hands
moved to his belt almost of their own
accord, a feeling of disappointment stir¬
ring vaguely in his mind. This was
not what he sought. Sought? Was he
seeking? Almost one might think so,
he told himself.
The thought troubled him as he
clicked the switches at his belt. What
was it that by its absence here made
him dismiss the idyllic scene with a
glance? He was hunting something,
restlessly searching through the ages for
— something. Then the tidal rush of
the centuries over his anchorage blotted
out wonder and all else in its oblivion.
SUNLIGHT like a physical blow
crashed down about him — blazing hot
sun that beat violently upon marble
pavement and struck blindingly up again
into his eyes. For a few seconds he
was aware of nothing more than this
intolerable glare. Gradually out of the
blazing heat the lines of marble walls
became clear about him. He stood upon
the floor of a dazzling white marble
pit about twenty feet square. Against
the opposite wall lay a man whose naked,
blood-spattered body was so still under
the down-blazing heat that Eric could
not be sure that he was alive.
He had seen this much before the
rising babble of excited voices above
him mounted loud enough to pierce his
dazed surprise. He looked up. Lean¬
ing over the pit’s rim were faces — faces
and arms and here and there a trail of
velvet robe, a bright scarf’s fringe.
They were the faces of aristocrats, fine
and dissipated and cruel. But all ex¬
pression was wiped from every one now.
In that first glance he had of them
he thought they must be Romans. He
had little to judge by save, their hair
dressing, and only a momentary glimpse
of that; for, as he raised his head, his
16
ASTOUNDING STORIES
eyes met the strange, smoke-blue eyes
of a woman who leaned upon the marble
rim just in front of him, and above.
A little space separated her from those
on each side. He had the swift im¬
pression that she was of higher rank
than the rest — some fleeting touch of
arrogance and pride in the face looking
down on him. And it was a familiar
face. Why he could not guess, but in
that glimpse of her he was sure that
he had seen those features somewhere
before, and recently.
Then she lifted one bare arm upon
whose whiteness the sun struck daz-
zlinglv, and pointed downward. From
behind her came the sound of metal
upon stone, and in the blinding light
he saw a man’s arm move swiftly. The
sun struck upon a long shaft of steel.
The spear was hurtling straight for his
breast as his hands flew to his belt.
The switches clicked, and in one great
sweeping blur the whole scene vanished.
After that came a blurry interval of
unthinkable inertness. The centuries
poured past. Then reality burst upon
him again as the switches clicked off.
He choked suddenly and gasped as air
thicker and moister than the air of a
tropical swamp smothered his lungs. He
stood there for a moment struggling
with it. forcing himself to evener breath¬
ing, as his bewildered gaze swept the
scene before him.
He stood in a square of ruined walls
that must once have been a small build¬
ing, though roof and sides had vanished
now and little was left but a crumbling
square outlining the long-fallen house.
To one side a higher heap of stone,
which was all that was left of the west¬
ern wall, obstructed his view of what
lay beyond. Over the fallen blocks be¬
fore him he could see a vast paved
square dotted with other buildings fallen
into ruin. And beyond these, under a
heavily clouded sky through which the
obscured sun poured in a queer, grayly
radiant light, buildings of barbaric col¬
ors and utterly alien architecture lifted
their Cyclopean heights, massive as the
walls of Karnak, but too strangely con¬
structed to awake any memories.
Even at this distance he recognized
those darker blotches upon the tremen¬
dous walls as the sign of a coming dis¬
solution. It was a city more awfully
impressive than any he had ever dreamed
of, standing gigantic under the low, gray
sky of this swamplike world — but its
glory was past. Here and there gaps
in the colossal walls spoke of fallen
blocks and ruined buildings. By the
thick, primordial air and the swamp
smell and the unrecognizable architec¬
ture he knew that he gazed upon a scene
of immortal antiquity, and his breath
came quicker as he stared, wondering
where the people were whose Cyclopean
city this was. what name they bore and
if history had ever recorded it.
A MEDLEY of curious sounds com¬
ing nearer awoke him from the awed
trance into which he had sunk. Feet
shuffling over pavement, the clang of
metal shivering against metal, hoarse
breathing, and a strange, intermittent
hissing he could not account for. It came
from that part of the great square which
the crumbling wall beside him hid.
That queer hissing sounded loud.
Some one yelled in a growling guttural,
and he heard the beat of running feet,
staggering and uncertain, coming nearer.
Then a figure that was a dazzle of white
and scarlet flashed through the aperture
in the crumbling wall where a door must
once have been. It was a girl. Her
choked breath beat loud in the narrow
place, and the scarlet that stained and
streaked her was bright blood that
gushed in ominous spurts from a deep
gash in her side. She was incredibly
white in the sunless day of this primor¬
dial city. Afterward he could never re¬
member much more than that — her
dazzling whiteness and the blood pump¬
ing in measured spurts from severed
TRYST IN TIME
arteries — and the smoke blueness of her
eyes.
He did not know what she had worn,
or anything else about her, for his eyes
met the smoky darkness of hers, and
for a timeless moment they stared at
one another, neither moving. He knew
her. She was that royal Roman who
had condemned him to death in the sun-
hot pit ; she was the laughing, red-
cloaked girl who had leaned from the
Elizabethan window. Incredibly, un¬
questionably, they three were the same
blue-eyed girl.
A yell and a scrambling sound out¬
side roused her from her tranced stare.
He wondered wildly if he had not seen
puzzled recognition in her filming eyes
in that one long instant before she swung
staggering toward the door. He knew
she was dying as she turned, but some
inner compulsion held him back, so that
he did not offer to support her, only-
stood watching. After all, there was
no help for her now. The smoke-blue
eyes were glazing and life gushed scar¬
let out of her riven side.
He saw her reel back against the bro¬
ken wall, and again he heard that strange
hissing as her right hand rose and from
a shining cylinder grasped in it a long
stream of blue heat flared. There was
a yell from outside. A throbbing si¬
lence broken only by the spatter of
the girl’s blood on the pavement. And
then something very'- strange happened.
She turned and glanced over her
shoulder and her eyes met his.
Something choked in his throat.
He was very near understanding a
great many things in that instant
while her filming blue gaze held his —
why he had felt so urgently all his life
long the need of something he had never
neared, until now - Words rushed
to his lips, but he never spoke them.
The instant passed in a flash.
The girl in that illuminating moment
must have realized something yet hidden
AST— 2
17
from him, for her lips trembled and an
infinite tenderness softened her glazing
eyes. And at the same instant her hand
rose again, and for the last time he
heard that searing hiss. She had turned
her nameless weapon upon herself.
In a flare of blue brillance he saw
her literally melt before his eyes. The
stones glowed hot, and the smell of
burned flesh filled the inclosure. And
Eric went sick with a sensation of de¬
vastating loss. She was dead — gone —
out of all reach now, and the universe
was so empty that - He had no time
to waste on his own emotion, for
through the broken wall was pouring a
mob of shambling things that were not
yet men.
Big, hairy, apish brutes brandishing
clubs and heavy stones, they surged in
a disordered mob through the ruined
stones. One or two of them carried
curiously shaped rusty swords of no
recognizable pattern. And Eric under¬
stood.
Dying, the girl would not leave even
her untenanted body to their defilement.
Pride had turned her hand to lay the
consuming beam upon herself — an in-
bred pride that could have come only
from generations of proud ancestry. It
was a gesture as aristocratic and as in¬
tensely civilized as the weapon that de¬
stroyed her. He would have known by
that gesture alone, without her flame¬
thrower or the unmistakable fineness of
her body and her face, that she was eons
in advance of the beasts she fled.
In the brief second while the brute-
men stood awed in the broken wall,
staring at the charred heap upon the
pavement and at the tall golden man
who stood over it, Eric’s mind was busy,
turning over quick wondering and specu¬
lations even as his hands reached for
the switches at his belt.
Her race must have reared that im¬
mense, unearthly city, long ago. A for¬
gotten race, wise in forgotten arts. Per-
18
ASTOUNDING STORIES
haps not born of earth. And the hordes
of brutish things which would one day
become men must have assailed them
as time beat down their Cyclopean city
and thinned their inbred ranks.
This girl, this unknown, unimaginably
far-distant girl, perhaps star-born, cer¬
tainly very alien — had died as all her
race must be doomed to die, until the
last flicker of that stupendous civiliza¬
tion was stamped out and earth forgot
the very existence of the slim, long-
legged human race which had once dwelt
upon her surface when her own primor¬
dial man was still an apish beast.
But — they had not wholly died. He
had seen her in other ages. Her smoky
eyes had looked down upon him in the
Roman pit ; her own gay voice had called
across the Elizabethan street. He was
very sure of that. And the queer, stun¬
ning sense of loss which had swept over
him as he saw her die lightened. She
had died, but she was not gone. Her
daughters lived through countless ages.
He would find her again, somewhere,
somehow, in some other age and land.
He would comb the centuries until he
found her. And he would ask her then
what her last long stare had meant, so
meltingly tender, so surely recognizing,
as she turned the blue-hot blaze upon
herself. He would -
A deep-throated bellow from the door¬
way in the wall startled him out of his
thoughts even as he realized their ab¬
surdity. The foremost of the brute-men
had overcome his awe. He lifted a
rusty sword, forged by what strange
hands for what unknown and forever
forgotten purpose there was no way
of knowing, and plunged forward.
Barely in time, Eric’s hands closed
on the switches and the stupendous,
time- forgotten city swirled sidewise and
melted forever into the abysses of the
past.
In the mental and physical inertia that
drowned him with its oblivion as the
current closed he waited moveless, and
once more the centuries rushed by. The
inexorable machinery clicked on. After
a timeless interval light broke again.
He awoke into more than tropical sultri¬
ness, the stench of mud and musk and
welter of prehistoric swamps. There
was nothing here save great splashing
monsters and the wriggling life of hot
seas. He flicked the switches again.
III.
THE NEXT TIME a broad plain
surrounded him, featureless to the hori¬
zon, unrecognizable, and the next a
horde of hairy, yelling men charged up
a rocky hill upon whose height he had
materialized. After that he visited and
left in rapid succession a ruined temple
in the midst of a jungle, a camp of
ragged nomads with slant eyes and
crooked legs, and an inexplicable foggy
place through which reverberated the
roar of staccato guns which sounded
like no guns he had ever heard. No¬
where appeared the girl with the smoke-
blue eyes.
He was beginning to despair, when,
after so many flashing scenes that he
had lost count of them, the darkness of
rushing centuries faded into a dawning
scene of noise and confusion. He stood
upon the trampled earth of a courtyard,
hot under the rays of a broiling, noon-
high sun.
He heard shouts in an unknown
tongue, the trample of horses’ feet and
the impatient jingle of harness, the creak
of wheels. Through the shining dust
that eddied, cloudlike, under the feet
of the crowd that bustled about the in¬
closure, he made out a train of heavy
wagons about which strange, short,
bearded men swarmed in busy confu¬
sion, heaving crates and bales into the
vehicles and calling in odd gutturals.
Men on horseback galloped to and fro
recklessly through the crowd, and the
TRYST IN TIME
19
There was something rather awe-inspiring about this launching upon time’s
broad river. In it the old scientist saw some purpose vaster than his own -
heavy-headed oxen stood in patient
twos at each wagon.
Eric found himself in a corner of the
low wall that circled the yard, and, in
the tumult, quite unnoticed so far. He
stood there quietly, hand resting lightly
on the butt of his revolver, watching
the scene. He could not guess where
he was, in what land or time, in the
presence of what alien race. The men
were all little and dark and hairy, and
somehow crooked, like gnomes. He had
never heard a tongue like the gutturals
they mouthed.
Then at the far side of the court¬
yard a lane opened in the crowd, and
through it a column of the crooked
brown men with curly-pronged pikes
across their shoulders came marching.
They had a captive with them — a girl.
A tall girl, slim and straight, high¬
headed. Eric leaned forward eagerly.
Yes, it was she. No mistaking the poise
of that high, dark head, the swing of
her body as she walked. As she came
nearer he saw her eyes, but he did not
need the smoky blue darkness of them
to convince him.
She wore manacles on her wrists, and
chains clanked between her ankles as she
walked. A leather tunic hung from
one shoulder in tatters, belted at the
waist by a twisted thong from which
an empty scabbard swung. She walked
very proudly among the gnarled sol¬
diers, looking out over their heads in
studied disdain. At a glance the high¬
bred aristocracy of her was clear, and
he could not mistake the fact that her
own people must be centuries in ad-
20
ASTOUNDING STORIES
vance of the squat, dark race which held
her captive.
The clamor had quieted now in the
courtyard. Dust was settling over the
long wagon train, the low-headed oxen,
the horsemen stationed at intervals
along the line. In silence, the crowd
fell back as the soldiers and their aloof
captive paced slowly across the court¬
yard. Tension was in the air.
ERIC had the vague feeling that he
should know what was to come. A
haunting familiarity about this scene
teased him. He racked a reluctant
memory as he watched the procession
near the center of the great yard. A
stone block stood there, worn and
stained. Not until the tall girl had
actually reached that block, and the sol¬
diers were forcing her to her knees,
did Eric remember. Sacrifice — always
before a caravan set forth in the very
old days, when the gods were greedy
and had to be bribed with human lives.
His gun was in his hand and he was
plunging forward through the startled
crowd before he quite realized what he
was doing. They gave way before him
in sheer amazement, falling back and
staring with bulging eyes at this sudden
apparition in their midst of a tall, yel¬
low-headed Juggernaut yelling like a
madman as he surged forward.
Not until he had reached the line of
soldiers did he meet any resistance.
They turned on him in gutturally shout¬
ing fury, and he shot them down as
fast as his revolver would pump bullets.
At that range he could not miss, and
six of the squat gnomes crumpled to
the dust in a haze of blue gun smoke.
They must have thought him a god,
dealing death in a crash of thunder and
the hot blaze of lightning. They
shrieked in panic terror, and the court¬
yard emptied like magic. Horses
plunged and reared, squealing. Pande¬
monium streamed out of the inclosure,
leaving behind only a haze of churned
dust, slowly settling. Through the
shimmer of it, across the huddle of
bodies, Eric looked again into the smoky
eyes of that girl he had last seen un¬
der the stupendous walls of the time-
buried city. And again he thought he
saw a puzzled and uncomprehending
recognition on her face, shining even
through her terror. She fronted him
resolutely, standing up proudly in her
chains and staring with frightened eyes
that would not admit their fear.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said in as gen¬
tle a voice as he could command, for
he knew the tone would convey a mes¬
sage, though the words did not. “We'd
better get out of here before they come
back.”
He was reloading his gun as he spoke.
She still did nothing but stare, wide-
eyed, rigid in sternly suppressed terror.
There was no time to waste now trying
to quiet her fears. Already he saw
dark, bearded faces peering around cor¬
ners at him. He skirted the heap of
fallen soldiers and swung the girl off
her feet. She gasped as his arms closed,
but no other sound escaped her as he
hoisted her over one shoulder, holding
her there with a clasp around her knees
so that he might have his gun hand free.
With long, unhurried strides he left the
courtyard.
A mud-walled village ringed the big
inclosure. Serenely, he went down the
dusty street, wary eyes scanning the
building, gun ready in one hand and
the chained girl slung across his heavy
shoulder. From behind shelter they
watched him go, tall and golden under
the noonday sun, a god out of no¬
where. Legends were to grow up
about that noon's events — a god come
down to earth to claim his sacrifice in
person.
When he reached the outskirts of the
village he paused and set the girl on
her feet, turning his attention to the
TRYST IN TIME
21
shackles that bound her. The chains
were apparently for ceremonial use
rather than utilitarian, for in his power¬
ful hands they snapped easily, and after
a brief struggle with the metal links
he had her free of chains, though the
anklets and cuffs still gripped her limbs.
These he could not loosen, but they
were not heavy and she could, he
thought, wear them without discomfort.
He rose as the last chain gave in his
hands, and stared round the wide circle
of rolling hills that hemmed them in.
“What now ?” he asked, looking down
at her.
The uncertainty of his attitude and
the query in his voice must have reas¬
sured her that he was at least human,
for the look of terror faded a little
from her eyes and she glanced back
down the street as if searching for
pursuers, and spoke to him — for the first
time he heard her voice — in a low, lilt¬
ing tongue that startled him by the hint
of familiarity he caught in its cadences.
He had a smattering of many languages,
and he was sure that this was akin to
one he knew, but for the moment he
could not place it.
When he did not answer she laid an
impatient hand on his arm and pulled
him along a few steps, then paused and
looked up inquiringly. Clearly she was
anxious to leave the village. He
shrugged and gestured helplessly. She
nodded, as if in understanding, and set
off at a rapid pace toward the hills.
He followed her.
IT WAS a tireless pace she set. The
metal circles on wrists and ankles
seemed not to hinder her, and she led
the way over hill after hill, through
clumps of woodland and past a swamp
or two, without slackening her pace. For
hours they traveled. The sun slid down
the sky; the shadows lengthened across
the hills. Not until darkness came did
she pause. They had reached a little
hollow ringed with trees. On one side
of it a rocky outcropping formed a
shelter, and a spring bubbled up among
the stones. It was an ideal spot for a
camp.
She turned and spoke for the second
time, and he knew then why her lan¬
guage was familiar. Definitely it was
akin to the Basque tongue. He had
once had opportunity to pick up a little
of that queer, ancient language, per¬
haps the oldest spoken in the world. It
is thought to be the last remnant of the
pre-Aryan tongues, and linked with
vanished races and forgotten times. And
the supposition must have been true, for
this girl’s speech echoed it in bafflingly
familiar phrases. Or — he paused here
— was he in the future or the past from
his own time? Well, no matter — she
was saying something all but incompre¬
hensible about fire, and looking about
among the underbrush. Eric shrugged
off his speculations on the subject of
tongues and helped her gather fire¬
wood.
His matches caused her a few minutes
of awe-struck terror when the fire was
kindled under the overhanging rocks
of the hillside. She quieted after a bit,
though, and presently pressed him to a
seat by the fire and vanished into the
dark. He waited uneasily until she re¬
turned, stepping softly into the light
with a kicking rabbit in her hands. He
never understood, then or later, how it
was that she could vanish into the hills
and return with some small animal un¬
hurt in her arms. He could scarcely be¬
lieve her swift enough to run them down,
and she had nothing with which to make
snares. It was one of the many mys¬
teries about her that he never fathomed.
They skinned and cleaned the little
beast with his hunting knife, and she
broiled it over the smoldering coals. It
was larger and stronger than the rabbits
of his own day, and its meat was tough
and sharply tangy.
22
ASTOUNDING STORIES
Afterward they sat by the carefully
banked fire and tried to talk. Her name
was Maia. Her people lived in a di¬
rection vaguely eastward and about one
day’s journey away, in a white-walled
city. All his attempts to learn in what
age he found himself were fruitless. He
thought from her almost incompre¬
hensible speech that she was telling him
how ancient her race was, and how it
had descended through countless gen¬
erations from a race of gods who dwelt
in a sky-high city in the world’s begin¬
ning. It was all so vague and broken
that he could not be sure.
She looked at him a great deal out
of grave blue eyes as she talked, and
there was in their depths a haunted re¬
membrance. He was to recall that look
of hers more clearly than anything else
about her, afterward. So many times
he caught the puzzled, brooding gaze
searching his face in troubled incompre¬
hension.
He sat there silently, scarcely heeding
the occasional low cadences of her voice.
He was learning the grave, sweet lines
of her young face, the way her eyes
tilted ever so faintly at the corners, the
smooth plane of her cheek, the curved
line on which her lips closed. And
sometimes the wonder of their meeting,
through so many ages, came down upon
him breathlessly, the realization of
something too vast and strange and
wonderful to put into words, and he
stared into the sweet, familiar face al¬
most with awe, thinking of those other
grave, dark eyes and serene faces, so
like hers, that ranged through time.
There was a tremendous purpose behind
that patterning of faces through the cen¬
turies, too great for him to grasp.
He watched her talk, the firelight
turning that dearly familiar face ruddy,
and shining in the deep, troubled blue¬
ness of her eyes, and a strange and
sudden tenderness came over him. He
bent forward, a catch in his throat, lay¬
ing his hands over hers, looking into the
memory-haunted depths of her eyes.
He said not a word, but he stared
deep and long, and he could have sworn
that sudden answer lighted in her gaze,
for one swift instant blotting out that
puzzled straining after remembrance
and turning her whole face serene and
lovely with understanding. The mo¬
ment held them enchanted, warm in the
deeps of something so breathlessly lovely
that he felt the sting of sudden hotness
behind his eyes. In that instant all
puzzlement and incomprehension was
swept aside and the answer to the great
purpose behind their meetings hovered
almost within grasp.
THEN, without warning, the girl’s
face crumpled into tears and she
snatched her hands away, leaping to her
feet with the long, startled bound of a
wild thing and facing him in the fire¬
light with clenched fists and swimming
eyes. It was not rebellion against his
clasp of her hands — surely she could see
that he meant no violence — but a revolt
against some inner enemy that dwelt
behind the tear-bright blue eyes. She
stood irresolutely there for a moment,
then made a helpless little gesture and
dropped to the ground once more, sit¬
ting there with bowed shoulders and
bent head, staring into the embers.
Presently her voice began softly,
speaking in little disconnected phrases
that fell monotonously into the silence.
He made out enough to understand her
sudden revulsion against that strange
and lovely oneness of understanding that
had gripped them both. She was be¬
trothed. She made him realize that it
was more than the simple plighting oi
vows between lovers. He caught vague
references to religious ceremonies, mar¬
riage of high priest and chosen virgin,
temple rites and the anger of a jealous
god. That much he understood.
She must fulfill the requisites of the
TRYST IN TIME
23
priest god’s bride. No man must touch
her until she came into the holy embrace
of the church. She must not even know
love for another man. And that, per¬
haps, was why she had pulled away from
him in the firelight and struggled
through tears with an inner enemy that
reached traitorously out to the golden
stranger who held her hands.
She was unshakable in her devotion
to that concept. Eric had known, from
the moment he first looked into her
smoke-filled eyes, that she would be
faithful to any ideal that stirred her.
A girl like this had destroyed the body
from which her soul was slipping, that
barbarians might not defile it. A girl
like this, imperiously royal and inflexibly
cruel, had watched torture in a sun-hot
pit, refusing to doubt her civilization’s
concept of the divine right of emperors
over their subjects’ lives. She was stub¬
born, this girl. Stubborn in her be¬
liefs whether they were kind or cruel.
She was of the stuff from which mar¬
tyrs are made.
They stood watch in turn over the
fire that night, she insisting on her share
of it with a grave certainty that brooked
no opposition. What the dangers were
which made it impossible for both to
sleep at once he did not know. On those
times when he dropped off into slumber
the last thing his closing eyes saw was
the girl Maia’s figure, slim and round
in her torn leather tunic, warm in the
firelight, serene in her determination
upon her life’s ordered plan. Nothing
could swerve her. She was so fine -
An ache came up in his throat as he
closed his eyes.
When he awoke in the morning she
had brought in a brace of small, fat
birds like quail and was preparing them
at the edge of the spring. She smiled
gravely as he sat up, but she said noth¬
ing, and she did not look at him any
more than she could help. She was
taking no chances with that traitor
within.
In silence, they shared the birds she
cooked over the embers. Afterward he
tried to make her understand that he
would take her as far as the gates of
her city. At first she demurred. She
knew this country well. She was strong
and young, wise in the lore of the hills.
She needed no escort. But Eric could
not bring himself to leave her until he
must. That moment of crystal under¬
standing, the warm, sweet unity they
had shared even for so short a breath
had forged a bond between them that
he could not bear to break.
And at last she consented. They
spoke very little after that. They put
out the fire and set off again over the
rolling hills toward the bright patch on
the sky where the sun was rising. All
day they traveled. In her mysterious,
secret way she found another rabbit
when hunger came on them around
noontide, and they paused to eat. In
the afternoon the pack on his back that
held that time machine began to irk
Eric’s Viking strength. She eyed it
curiously as he hitched his load for¬
ward to ease its burden, but she said
nothing.
Twilight was darkening over the hills
when Maia paused on the crest of a little
rise and pointed ahead. Eric saw a pat¬
tern of white houses ringed by a broken
wall a little way distant upon the crown
of a higher hill than the rest. And
here she made it clear that she must
leave him. He was not to accompany
her within sight of the city walls.
He stood on the hilltop, watching
her go. She did not look back. She
walked lightly, surely, the long grass
breaking like green surf about her knees,
her head high and resolute. He watched
her until she passed, a little far-off fig¬
ure, under the broken wall, and its gate¬
way swallowed her up out of his sight
forever. And in his heart was a min¬
gling of pain and loss and high anticipa¬
tion. For he was growing increasingly
24
ASTOUNDING STORIES
sure now that there was much more than
chance behind these brief and seemingly
so futile meetings with the one death¬
less, blue-eyed girl.
He laid his hands on the switches at
his belt confidently as that proudly mov¬
ing young figure vanished under the gate.
He had lost her — but not for long.
Somewhere in the veiled, remote future,
somewhere in the unexplored past she
waited him. His fingers closed over the
switch.
DARKLY the rush of centuries swept
over him, blotting away the hills and
the green meadows between, and the
nameless white city that was crumbling
into decay. He would never see Maia
again, but there were other Maias, wait¬
ing. Oblivion swallowed him up and
his impatience and his dawning convic¬
tion of a vast purpose behind his jour-
neyings, in the great grayness of its
peace.
Out of that blankness a blue day
dawned, bright over a moated castle’s
battlements. From a hilltop perhaps a
quarter of a mile away he saw the surge
of armored men under the walls, heard
shouts and the clang of metal on metal
drifting to him on the gentleness of a
little breeze. And it occurred to him
how often it was upon scenes of strife
and sudden death that he chanced in his
haphazard journeying. He wondered if
they had been so thick in the past that
the odds were against his coming into
peaceful places, or if his own life of
danger and adventuring had any influ¬
ence upon the points in time which he
visited so briefly.
But it mattered little. He looked
around searchingly, wondering if an¬
other blue-eyed Maia dwelt near him
in this medieval world. But there was
nothing here. Green forest closed in at
the hill’s foot. Save for the castle there
was no sign of civilization, no sign of
men but for the shouting besiegers. Per¬
haps she lived somewhere in this blue,
primitive world, but he could not risk
a search for her. She was elsewhere,
too.
Suddenly he was awed by the cer¬
tainty of that — the incomprehensible
vastness of his certainty and of her pres¬
ence. She was everywhere. From
time’s beginning to time’s close — she
was. No era had not known her; no
spot on the world’s surface had not felt
the press of her feet. And though the
infinite future and the infinite past held
her. and the earth's farthest corners, yet
in reality every incarnation of her was
here and now, available to him with no
greater interval between her countless
daughters than the instant flash of the
centuries that poured over him when the
switches closed. She was omnipresent,
eternal. He knew her presences in the
oblivion that swallowed him as his hands
gripped the switches again and the be¬
leaguered castle melted into the past.
IV.
TWO CHILDREN were playing by
a shallow river. Eric walked slowly to¬
ward them through the warm sand. A
little girl, a little boy in brief tunics
of soiled white. Perhaps ten years old
they were, and absorbed in their play
at the water’s edge. Not until his
shadow fell across their castle of rocks
and sand did they look up. And the
girl child’s eyes were blue as smoke in
her small, tanned face.
Those familiar eyes met his. For a
long moment she stared. Then she
smiled hesitantly, very sweetly, and rose
to her bare feet, shaking the sand from
her tunic and looking up at him still
with that grave, sweet smile illuminating
her small face and a queer hesitation
checking her speech.
At last she said, “Ou e’voo?” in the
softest, gentlest voice imaginable. It
was remotely recognizable as a tongue
TRYST IN TIME
that might one day be — or once had been
— French. “Who are you?”
“Je suis Eric,” he told gravely.
She shook her head a little. “Zh
n’comprcn - ” she began doubtfully,
in that strange, garbled tongue so like
French. But she broke off in her denial,
for though the name was strange to her
yet he was sure he saw recognition begin
to dawn in the smoke-blue eyes he knew
so well. “Zh voo z’ai vuf”
“Have you?” he asked her very gen¬
tly, trying to distort his French into the
queer sounds of hers. “Have you really-
seen me before?”
“I thought so,” she murmured shyly,
bewilderment muting her speech until it
sounded scarcely above a childish whis¬
per. “I have seen your face before —
somewhere, once — long ago.' Have I?
Have I — Eric? I do not know your
name. I never heard it before. But
your face — you - O, Eric dear — I
do love you!”
Halfway through that speech she had
changed her “voo” to the ”tu” of in¬
timacy, and the last of it came out on a
little rush of childish affection, “Eric,
cher — zh t’aime!”
Somewhere back among the willows
that lined the shallow stream a woman’s
voice called sharply. The sound of feet
among dead leaves approached. The
little boy jumped to his feet, but the
girl seemed not to hear. She was look¬
ing up at Eric with wide blue eyes, her
small face rapt with a child's swift
adoration. Ten years older and she
might have questioned the possibility of
that instant recognition, perhaps uncon¬
sciously checked the instant warmth that
rose within her, but the child's mind ac¬
cepted it without question.
The woman was very near now. He
knew he must not frighten her. He
stooped and kissed the little girl’s cheek
gently. Then he took her by the shoul¬
ders and turned her toward the woods
into which the boy had already vanished.
“Go to your mother,” he told her
25
softly. And he laid his hands again on
the switches. She was beginning to
know him, he thought, as the river bank
swirled sidewise into nothingness. Each
time they met the recognition grew
stronger. And though there was no con¬
tinuity in their meetings, so that he
seemed to be jumping back and forth
through time and this child might be
the remote ancestress or the far de¬
scendant of his resolute Maia, yet some¬
how — by no racial memory surely, for
it was not down a direct line of women
that he progressed, but haphazardly to
and fro through their ranks — somehow
they were beginning to know him. Ob¬
livion blotted out his puzzling.
OUT of the rushing dark a steel-
walled city blazed into sudden, harsh
life. He stood on one tower of its many
heights, looking out and down over a
dizzy vista of distances that swam with
the reflections of sunlight on steel. He
stood still for a moment, shading his
eyes and staring. But he was impatient.
Something instinctive in him, growing
stronger now and surer of itself as this
strange chain of circumstance and meet¬
ing drew on to its conclusion, told him
that what he sought lay nowhere in this
section out of time. Without a glance
around the stupendous steel marvel of
the city he gripped the switches once
more, and in a shimmer and a dazzle
the shining metropolis melted into ob¬
livion.
A burst of wild yelling like the voices
of wolves baying from savage human
throats smote through the darkness at
him even before the sight of what was
coming. Then a plank flooring was un¬
der his feet and he looked out over a
tossing surface of tousled heads ■ and
brandished fists and weapons, toward
another platform, this of stone, the
height of his across the thunderous sea
of the mob. The crackle of flames was
mounting even above that roaring. On
the other platform, bound to a tall,
26
ASTOUNDING STORIES
charred stake, ringed with fagots and
rising flames, the blue-eyed girl stood
proudly. She was very straight against
the pillar, chin high, looking out in dis¬
dain over the tumult below.
For the breath of a second Eric
glanced round him, snatching at straws
in a frantic effort to find some way of
saving her. On the platform behind him
speechless amazement had stricken dumb
a little party of men and women in
brightly colored garments of 16th Cen¬
tury cut. They must have been nobles,
viewing the burning from this favored
seat. Eric wasted only one glance at
their stupefied surprise. He swung
round again, his desperate eyes raking
the mob. No hope there. It clamored
for the tall girl’s life in one tremen¬
dous, wolf-savage baying that ripped
from every throat there in a single
blending roar.
“Witch!” they yelled. “Death to the
witch!” in an archaic English that he
understood without too much difficulty,
a blood-hungry baying that brooked no
denial. They had not seen him yet. But
the girl had.
Over their heads, through the little
shimmering heat waves that were rising
about her already in veils of scorching
breath, her smoke-blue eyes met his. It
was a meeting as tangible almost as the
meeting of hands. And like the grip
of hands so that gaze held, steady and
unswerving for a long moment — burn¬
ing witch of old England and tall young
adventurer of modern America gazing
with sure recognition in the eyes of
each. Eric’s heart jumped into a quick¬
ened beating as he saw the sureness in
those smoke-blue eyes he had gazed into
so often. She knew him — without any
question or doubt she recognized him.
Over the wolf-baying of the mob he
heard her voice in one high, clear
scream.
“You’ve come ! I knew you’d come !”
At the sound of it silence dropped
over the crowd. Almost in one motion
they swung round to follow her ecstatic
stare. And in the instant of their
stricken surprise at the man they saw
there, tall and golden against the sky,
a figure out of no experience they had
ever had before — the witch’s voice rang
clear.
“You’ve come ! O, I knew you would,
in the end. They always said you would.
They knew! And I must die for the
knowledge I got from Them — but by
that knowledge I know this is not the
end. Somewhere, some day, we will
meet again. Good-by — good-by, my
dearest !”
Her voice had not faltered, though the
flames were licking up about her, and
now, in a great burst of crimson, they
caught in the fagots and blazed up in a
gush that enveloped her in raving in¬
ferno. Choked with horror, Eric swung
up his gun hand. The bark of the re¬
port sent half the crowd to its knees in
terror, and he saw through the flames
the girl’s tall figure slump suddenly
against her bonds. This much at least
he could do.
Then, in the midst of a silence so deep
that the creak of the planks under his
feet was loud as he moved, he sheathed
the gun and closed his hands over the
switches. Impatience boiled up in him
as the prostrate crowd and the flame-
wrapped witch and the whole ugly scene
before him reeled into nothingness.
He was coming near the goal now.
Each successive step found recognition
surer in her eyes. She knew him in this
incarnation, and he was full of con¬
fidence now that the end and the solu¬
tion was near. For though in all their
meetings there had been barriers, so that
they two could never wholly know one
another or come into the unity of love
and comprehension which each meeting
promised, yet he knew very surely that
in the end they must. All this had not
been in vain.
TRYST IN TIME
27
In the oblivion that washed over him
was so sure a consciousness of her omni¬
presence — in all the centuries that were
sweeping past, in all the lands those
centuries washed over, throughout time
and space and life itself, her ever-pres¬
ent loveliness — that he welcomed the
darkness as if he embraced the girl her¬
self. It was full of her, one with her.
He could not lose her or be far from
her or even miss her now. She was
everywhere, always. And the end was
coming. Very soon — very soon he
would know -
HE WOKE out of the oblivion,
blindly into darkness. Like the fold of
wings it engulfed him. If he was stand¬
ing on solid earth, he did not know it.
He was straining every faculty to pierce
that blinding dark, and he could not. It
was a living darkness, pulsing with an¬
ticipation. He waited in silence.
Presently she spoke.
“I have waited so long,” she said out
of the blackness in her sweet, clear voice
that he knew so well he did not need
the evidence of his eyes to tell him who
spoke.
“Is this the end?” he asked her
breathlessly. “Is this the goal we’ve
been traveling toward so long?”
“The end?” she murmured with a lit¬
tle catch of mirth in her voice. “Or the
beginning, perhaps. Where in a circle
is end or beginning? It is enough that
we are together at last.”
“But what — why - ”
“Something went wrong, somewhere,”
she told him softly. “It doesn’t matter
now. We have expiated the forgotten
sins that kept us apart to the very end.
Our troubled reflections upon the river
of time sought each other and never
wholly met. And we, who should have
been time’s masters, struggled in the
changing currents and knew only that
everything was wrong with us, who did
not know each other.
"But all that is ended now. Our lives
are lived out and we can escape time
and space into our own place at last.
Our love has been so great a thing that
though it never fulfilled itself, yet it
brimmed time and the void to overflow¬
ing. so that everywhere you adventured
the knowledge of my present tormented
you — and I waited for you in vain. For¬
get it now. It’s over. We have found
ourselves at last.”
“If I could only see you,” he said
fretfully, reaching out into the black¬
ness. “It’s so dark here. Where are
we ?”
“Dark?” the gentle voice laughed
softly. “Dark ? My dearest — this is not
darkness! Wait a moment — here!”
Out of the night a hand clasped his.
“Come with me.”
Together they stepped forward.
The FLAME MIDGET
Always, size has been associated
with power — force -
by Frank Belknap Long, Jr.
ALTHOUGH the sun was warm
and shining brightly, I experi-
enced a sense of dismal forebod¬
ing when I drew near to Richard Ash¬
ley’s little South Carolinian retreat.
Live oaks and palmettos screened the
small laboratory building and the high
yellow fence beyond. Huge, brown
mushrooms, which looked like the con¬
ical dwellings of gnomes and other
demons of fable with a lineage rooted
deep in earth, studded the grass about
me.
As I advanced over the narrow path¬
way which led to the laboratory door, I
told myself with some bitterness that
no other bacteriologist of Ashley’s stand¬
ing would have conducted his researches
so far from the citadels of organized
science. Ashley had once labored in a
great white laboratory by the sea, and
this little inland retreat seemed pecu¬
liarly noisome by contrast.
I don’t like profuse and suggestive
vegetation. I don’t like little buildings
nestling in the midst of clustering shad¬
ows, with dank earth odors all about
them. But Ashley was a strange chap.
There is a sect of Eastern fanatics
which insists that human beings are but
thinly disguised counterparts of certain
animals. Some men exhibit character¬
istics which link them with the birds of
the air, others with tigers, pigs, and
hyenas, and still others with the inverte¬
brate phyla. I have often thought that
the imaginative gentlemen who adhere to
this cult would have classified Ashley as
a mole or an earthworm. I am not being
facetious when I say that Ashley was
a deep one.
He resented and fled from all warm,
human, personal contacts. I don’t be¬
lieve there was ever a woman in his life.
Even friendship was impossible to him.
But occasionally he’d get into an intel¬
lectual jam, or run head-on into a stone
wall ; and then he’d send for me. I was
his good man Friday. As a human being
I didn’t admire Ashley at all. But as a
scientist — and I think scientists are the
salt of the earth — I respected and re¬
vered him.
I was halfway down the path when
the laboratory door opened suddenly and
Ashley came out. He came out blinking
into the warm, bright sunlight, and stood
for an instant with his hand on the door¬
knob, peering intently through thick-
lensed spectacles at the hatless and per¬
spiring young man who was approach¬
ing him over the lawn.
He resembled a corpse. His features,
especially the skin on his cheek bones,
had the sickly pallor which usually ac¬
companies a stoppage of circulation.
There were black half moons under both
his eyes, and the veins on his forehead
stood out horribly. His expression was
a peculiar one, difficult to describe.
Though torment and apprehension
looked out of his eyes, he seemed some¬
how still master of himself and even a
little defiant.
“You took your time getting here,
didn’t you?” he said, petulantly, as
though he was addressing a child.
I had come three hundred miles by
THE FLAME MIDGET
29
The thing seemed to speak to me. Words rippled across my mind.
“You are his friend. I will not harm you.”
30
ASTOUNDING STORIES
bus, in response to his urgent telegram,
but it was no good being angry with
him. He was tormented and in trouble.
A wave of compassion swept over me
when I saw how his hands were shak¬
ing. When he tried to hold the door
open for me he sagged against the jamb.
For an instant I thought he was going
to fall.
As we passed from the palmetto-shad¬
owed lawn into the interior of the labo¬
ratory I watched him out of the corner
of my eye, striving to repress his
hysteria. I continued to shoot side-
wise glances at- him until we reached
the large, sunlighted room where he
worked over his slides and cultures.
His composure seemed to return a lit¬
tle when he shut the door of that room.
He seized my hand and pressed it grate¬
fully.
“Glad you came, John,” he said.
“Really glad. It was decent of you.”-
I looked at him. A trace of color had
crept back into his cheeks. He was
standing with his back to the window,
gazing in a kind of trance at the long
row of microscopes which had claimed
his attention for five absorbing months,
and the pale-blue jars full of polluted
water which contained an astonishing as¬
sortment of microscopic organisms —
diatoms and wheel animalcules and
prototropic bacteria, all tremendously
important to him in his patient labors.
The laboratory was bathed in limpid
shafts of warm and slowly reddening
sunlight, and I remember how the
optical tubes of the microscopes glittered
as I stared at them. Their brilliant
sheen seemed to exert an almost hyp¬
notic influence on my companion. But
suddenly he tore his gaze away and his
lean fingers fastened on my arm in a
grip that made me wince.
“It’s under the third microscope from
the end of the table,” he said, with
twitching lips. “It put itself on the slide
deliberately. I thought, of course, that
it was a microorganism at first. But
when he stared steadily up at me I found
myself thinking its thoughts and ob¬
scurely sharing its incredible emotions.
You see, it would have been invisible
to the naked eye. With devilish cun¬
ning it put itself where I would be sure
to see it.”
He nodded grimly toward the long,
zinc-topped table which ran the length
of the laboratory. “You may look at
it if you wish. The third microscope.”
I turned and stared at him intently
for an instant. His eyes seemed ab¬
normally bright, but the pupils were not
dilated. I am rather proficient at de¬
tecting the stigmata of drugs, hysteria,
incipient insanity. Without a word I
moved to the end of the table, bent over
and glued my eye to the instrument of
science.
For a moment I stared down at tiny,
moving blebs of matter on an immersion
liquid which was tinted a beautiful rose-
pink. Shapes grotesque and aberrant,
grotesque and revolting, weaved in and
out and devoured one another on a
mucid area no larger than my thumb.
Hundreds of shapes with enormous,
greedy “mouths” and repulsively writh¬
ing bodies darted in and out between
slothful tiger animalcules, and flat,
segmented horrors which bore a nau¬
seating resemblance to the proglottides
of fish tapeworms and other intestinal
Cestoda.
Suddenly, as I stared, an organism
shaped like an inverted bell swam toward
the center of the slide and remained
there with curious oscillatory move¬
ments of its tapering body. It was ut¬
terly unlike the hundreds of other loath¬
some, squirming little animals about it.
It was quite large, for one thing, and
extremely complex in structure, consist¬
ing of an outer translucent shell or
chrysalis, and a cone-shaped inner shell,
also transparent and curiously iridescent
in texture. As I peered more intently
I perceived that the inner shell en¬
veloped a little form, serving as a sort of
THE FLAME MIDGET
31
matrix for the actual inhabitant of the
bell.
The little form was shockingly an¬
thropomorphic in contour. There is
something horribly disturbing about the
human form when it is simulated by
creatures of nonsimian origin. Vaguely
man-shaped fishes, reptiles and insects
— and there are a few such in nature —
invariably repel me. The debased but
distinctly manlike face of a skate or
ray fills me with detestation. I shiver
when I see a frog with its legs extended.
Perhaps this fear reaction is caused by
man’s primitive, instinct dread of being
supplanted.
Ordinarily the revulsion is fleeting and
quickly forgotten. But as I gazed down
at the little shape within the bell, the
horror which I experienced was per¬
vasive, unsettling. It wasn't just a shiv¬
ery premonition. I had a feeling I was
gazing on something alien to normal ex¬
perience, something that transcended all
the grotesque parallelisms in Nature’s
book.
The little shape was in all respects a
perfectly formed little man, dark-
skinned, with pointed ears and pointed
chin. Purely by accident it resembled
a whimsical creation of man’s fancy.
Purely by accident it was goblinlike,
gnomelike. But it was not whimsical.
It was horrible.
A human shape, starkly nude and so
small it was invisible to the naked eye
tenuously suspended within a bell-shaped
receptacle. It rested on its back, with
its little arms tightly folded across its
chest. Its abdomen, arms and legs were
covered with fine, reddish hair. Sud¬
denly, as I studied it, sick with revulsion
and horror, it opened its little slitted
eyes and stared steadily up at me.
SOMETHING seemed to speak to
me then. Words rippled across my mind
in slow, sluggish waves.
“You are his friend. I will not harm
you. Do not fear me.”
I spun from the microscope, gasping
out in unbelief and horror. Ashley laid
his hand on my arm and drew me swiftly
away from the table.
“You saw it?” he asked. “It spoke
to you?”
I nodded. I stared at him in furious
unbelief. I clenched my hands in blind
terror. I said: “What is it, Richard?”
I was trembling like a leaf. My face
was twitching ; I could feel the blood
tingling in my cheeks as it drained away.
“It has traveled for hundreds of light
years through interstellar space,” he said.
“Its home is on a tiny planet encircling
a sun of inconceivable density in a star
cluster more remote than Earth's near¬
est stellar neighbors, but an immeasur¬
able distance from the rim of the galaxy.
It came in a little space vessel which
is hidden somewhere in the laboratory.
It refuses to tell me where the vessel
is concealed. Through some un¬
dreamed-of development of the power of
telepathy it can transmit a whole se-
qence of thought images in a flash.”
I nodded grimly. “I know,” I said.
“It spoke to me. At least, words formed
in my mind.”
Ashley grasped at that admission as
though it were a life line which I had
flung him suddenly in sheer compassion
and at grave risk to myself.
“Then you do believe, John. I’m glad.
Skepticism would be dangerous now. It
can sense all opposition to me.”
He fell silent an instant. He was
staring with fixed intentness at the tube
of the microscope which contained the
little horror.
“I know that it is difficult to accept
a reality in startling opposition to the
whole trend of modern scientific
thought,” he said. “Since the age of
Kepler the thinking portion of mankind
has inordinately glorified bigness, vast¬
ness, extension in space and time. Scien¬
tifically minded men have thrown their
thoughts occasionally outward toward
remote constellations and mysteriously
32
ASTOUNDING STORIES
receding nebulae, and dreamed vain
dreams in which mere size has figured
as a stepping stone to the eternal.
“But why should size be of any par¬
ticular importance to the mysterious
architect of the mysterioifs universe.”
“One associates size with force,
power,” I replied, my eyes on his white
face.
“But size and power are not coin¬
cidental throughout the universe,” ex¬
claimed Ashley. “The radiant force
fields at the core of many midget suns
would shatter the stellar giants into
glowing fragments. Van Maanen’s star
is no larger than our Earth, but its
density exceeds that of the solar disk.
If this little star came within a few mil¬
lion miles of Pluto’s orbit, it would dis¬
rupt the Sun and turn it into a nova. A
tiny fragment of its inconceivably con¬
centrated substance no larger than a
bolide would pull mighty Jupiter from
its orbit. A few spoonfuls of radiant
matter from its core colliding with the
Earth's crust would cause a more cata¬
clysmic upheaval than the eruption of a
major volcano.
“In size it is simply negligible in the
cosmic scheme. Compared to the Sun
it is a gadfly speck, but it would be
capable of blasting a heavenly body mil¬
lions of times larger than itself.
“The little figure which you have
seen was spawned on an unimaginably
energized planet no larger than a large
meteor, encircling a sun heavier than
Van Maanen’s star, but smaller in cir¬
cumference than little Venus. A pygmy
sun containing within its tiny bulk a con¬
centration of matter so intense that its
atoms may actually have become nega¬
tive in mass.
“The thin, transparent sheaths in
which the little figure appears to float
are nonconductive energy sheaths.
When the figure extends its arms the
sheaths divide laterally, and a searing
emanation streams out.”
ASHLEY’S VOICE rose in pitch.
He appeared to be approaching a crisis
in his recital.
“That radiation surpasses high-fre¬
quency electric waves in its destructive
power.
“You are, of course, familiar with the
theories of the noted research biolgist
Dr. George Crile as to the nature and
origin of life. Crile believes all life is
electromagnetic in nature and directly
activated by the solar disk. He affirms
that the Sun shines with unabated
radiance in the protoplasm of animals.
“According to Crile every cell of an
animal body contains tiny centers of
radiation called radiogens, which have a
temperature of six thousand degrees
centigrade. These minute hot points are
invisible even under the most powerful
microscopes. Tiny, incandescent suns,
hotter than the solar photosphere and
more mysterious than the atom, they
generate fields of force within us, pro¬
ducing in all the cells of our bodies the
phenomenon of life. But these force
fields do not flow outward from our
bodies in searing emanations. They are
so inconceivably tiny and infrequently
spaced that their excess heat is dissipated
by the water in our tissues.
“The little figure which you have seen
is more lethally endowed. The product
of a hotter and more concentrated sun,
its radiant energies are not damped by
what Crile has defined as interradiogen
spaces within itself. Its entire body is a
mass of radiogens. When the protec¬
tive sheaths are withdrawn this terrific
energy flows outward in channeled
waves, searing everything in its path.
“Two days ago, in my presence, it
withdrew the sheaths. One channeled
wave streamed eastward across the At¬
lantic Ocean and was dissipated before
it reached the shores of Europe. But
the one that streamed westward killed
twenty-four human beings.
“One death occurred right in this
vicinity. A tenant farmer named Jake
THE FLAME MIDGET
I had a feeling I was gazing on something alien to normal experience,
something that transcended all the grotesque parallelisms in nature.
AST— 3
34
ASTOUNDING STORIES
Saunders was sitting quietly in the liv¬
ing room of his home with his wife and
children when the ray pierced him. He
threw up his arms, cried out and slumped
jerkily to the floor. His flesh turned
black. Although the Sun was shining
in a cloudless sky, the local papers
blindly assumed that a bolt of lightning
had blasted the poor devil. In a New
York paper which arrived yesterday all
of the other deaths are casually ascribed
to freak electrical storms throughout the
country. One would think that such
tragedies were of everyday occur¬
rence.”
“But if the wave crossed the continent
thousands should have perished,” I
gasped. “How do you account for the
fact that only a few were fatally af¬
fected?’'
"The unimaginable thinness of the
radiant beam,” he said. “It is a single
lethal filament, nonspreading until it con¬
tacts an animal substance. Then it
spreads in all directions, blasting and
searing the body in its path. Before it
leaves the body it becomes a narrow
thread of force again. Extend a thin
wire from New York to San Francisco,
and the number of men and animals
directly in its path would be small in¬
deed.”
I was too horrified to comment. I
glanced at the microscope, in silent
dread and revulsion. Somehow I could
not doubt one word of Ashley’s recital.
I had seen the little shape with my own
eyes. It had stared up at me and com¬
municated with me. Only its assurances
of amity awakened by skepticism, caus¬
ing my mood to grow darker as I mused
on the implications of Ashley’s words.
“I have been in constant communica¬
tion with it for three days,” said Ash¬
ley. “It was drawn to me because it
believes I am superior to most men in
intellectual acumen. The quality of my
mind exerted a profound influence upon
it, attracting it like a lodestone.
"THE WORLD from which it comes
would be incomprehensible to us. Its
inhabitants are motivated by passions
and desires which are alien to humanity.
The little shape is a sort of emissary,
sent across space by its myriad brethren
to study conditions on the remote terres¬
trial globe at first hand. Although they
possess instruments of observation in¬
finitely more complex and powerful than
our telescopes, and have studied Earth
from afar, they have never before at¬
tempted to communicate with us. When
the little baroque returns its brethren
will come in vast numbers.
“When they come they will probably
exterminate the entire human race. The
little shape does not admire us, and
when it returns its observations will re¬
flect no credit on mankind. It thinks
us needlessly irrational and cruel. Our
custom of settling disputes by a process
of wholesale extermination it regards as
akin to the savagery of animals. It
thinks that our mechanical achievements
are less remarkable than the social life
of the ants and bees. It regards us as
unnecessary excrescences on the face of
a comparatively pleasant little globe in
space which should afford limitless op¬
portunities for colonization.
“As an isolated individual it respects
and even admires me. There is nothing
paradoxical in this. Mankind as a
whole shuns and fears the dangerous
animals which individual men frequently
cherish as pets. It regards me as a kind
of superior pet — possessing certain lik¬
able characteristics, but sharing a herit¬
age, and following conduct patterns
which are repellent to it.”
I glanced at the microscope in appre¬
hension. His candor disturbed, fright¬
ened me.
“Isn’t it reading your thoughts now?’*
I asked.
“No. One must be within two or
three feet of it. Its telepathic equip¬
ment breaks down beyond a certain
radius. It cannot overhear us. It does
THE FLAME MIDGET
35
not even know that I intend to destroy
it.”
I stared at him, startled.
“If it does not return,” he said, “they
will not raid Earth immediately. They
will send another emissary to search for
it. Although they can travel with the
velocity of light, the star cluster from
which they come is so remote that an¬
other emissary would not arrive before
the twenty-second century. Another
two hundred and fifty years would elapse
before that emissary could return and
make his report. The first raiders
would not arrive before 2700.
“In eight hundred years mankind may
succeed in developing some means of
defense sufficiently powerful to repel and
destroy them. Atomic armaments, per¬
haps.”
He ceased speaking abruptly. I no¬
ticed that the muscles of his face were
twitching spasmodically. He was ob¬
viously laboring under an almost un¬
bearable emotional strain. Suddenly his
hands went into one of the spacious
pockets of his laboratory frock, and
emerged with a flat, metallic object no
larger than a cigarette case.
“This is used for purposes of demon¬
stration in the metal industries,” he said,
as he extended it toward me on the palm
of his hand. “It is a midget induction
furnace. It will melt virtually all known
metals in three or four seconds — even
molybdenum, which has a melting point
of nearly five thousand degrees Fahren¬
heit.”
I stared at the object, fascinated.
Superficially it resembled a little crystal
radio set. It consisted merely of a small,
spoonlike object about a half inch in
height, resting in the center of a flat sur¬
face of highly burnished copper. Two
curving prongs with insulated stems
branched from both sides of the little
spool and projected a full inch beyond
the gleaming baseboard.
“High-frequency waves set up a sear¬
ing, blasting heat within the metal a few
seconds after the furnace is turned on,”
he said. “I telegraphed to Giarleston
for the apparatus yesterday, but it did
not arrive until an hour ago.”
I had a pretty good idea then why he
had sent for me. Richard Ashley was
about to endanger his life. If the little
horror survived the terrific heat gener¬
ated by the blast furnace, it would cer¬
tainly turn upon Ashley and destroy him.
It would destroy both Ashley and my¬
self. And since its protective sheaths
could resist an internal incandescence of
thousands of degrees centigrade, Ashley
would be taking a long, grim chance."
MY FRIEND seemed to sense what
was passing through my mind. “Per¬
haps you’d better not stay, John,” he
said. “I’ve no right to ask you to risk
your neck.”
“You want me to stay, don’t you?” I
asked.
“Yes, but - ”
“Then I will. When do we — burn
it.”
He looked at me steadily for an in¬
stant. I had a shaky feeling he was
weighing the chances against us.
“No sense in putting it off,” he said.
Unwaveringly, I met and held his
gaze. “Right, Richard,” I murmured.
“It will be difficult,” he said. “Diffi¬
cult and — dangerous. It will start read¬
ing my mind as soon as I approach the
microscope, and if it becomes suspicious
it will remove itself before the slide be¬
gins to melt.”
He smiled with an effort. His hand
shot out. “I’ll try to make my thoughts
behave,” he said. “Wish me luck.”
“I know you’ll succeed, Richard,” I
murmured, as I returned the pressure of
his fingers. He had laid the little induc¬
tion furnace on the edge of the labora¬
tory table. With a grim nod he picked
it up and advanced with rapid steps to¬
ward the long row of sun-dappled
microscopes. His broad back concealed
the gleaming instruments from view as
36
ASTOUNDING STORIES
he approached the far end of the labora¬
tory.
I watched him with indrawn breath.
When he reached the extremity of the
table he swung about and stooped a lit¬
tle. I saw his elbow jerk back. There
was a faint, sputtering sound. It was
followed by a blinding flash of polychro¬
matic light. For an instant he remained
bending above the table. Then he
straightened and came slowly back to
where I was standing. His face was
gray.
“There isn’t much left of the micro¬
scope,” he said. “The slide is liquid,
molten. Take a look at it.”
Curiosity drew me swiftly toward the
end of the table. The little induction
furnace had indeed flamed destructively.
The microscope was a twisted, blackened
wreck. The optical tube lay prone in a
gleaming mass of metallic ooze on the
zinc table top.
Ashley had moved to the opposite
side of the laboratory and was stripping
off his soiled and faded frock.
"I’m going for a walk,” he exclaimed.
“I’ve got to get out in the open, away
from all this. I’ll crack if I don’t.”
I nodded sympathetically. “I’ll go
with you,” I said.
A FEW MINUTES LATER we
were walking side by side along a nar¬
row dirt road under the open sky.
Crickets shrilled in dust barrows under
our feet and warblers, wrens and chick¬
adees chirped from the low branches of
short-leaf palms and tulip trees. On
both sides off us gently rolling hills
stretched away to glimmering, haze-ob¬
scured horizons.
I glanced at my companion in deep
concern. He moved like a man en¬
tranced, his body swaying a little as he
advanced over the sun-baked soil of the
deeply rutted and winding roadway. My
concern increased when I perceived that
he was silently muttering to himself.
With a shudder I tore my gaze from
his white face and stared straight be¬
fore me. For a long time I continued
to keep pace with him in silence, my
mind occupied with plans for getting him
away from the little laboratory and into
an environment where the memories of
his grim, three-day ordeal would cease
to play on his tormented nerves.
Suddenly he lurched against me. I
heard him gasp in horror. A chill pre¬
monition swept over me as I swung
about, staring. His features were con¬
torted with fright and he was trembling
all over.
"It’s still alive,” he choked. “It just
spoke to me again. It has taken refuge
inside my body.”
“Richard,” I exclaimed, “have you
gone mad?”
“No,” he choked. “It is really in my
body. It says that when it came to
Earth it berthed the. space ship in my
right kidney.”
“Impossible !” I gasped. “How could
it - ”
“The space ship is microscopic, too.
It can pass freely through all the organs
and tissues of a human body. For three
days the tiny vessel has been suspended
in the pelvis of my right kidney by
radiant microscopic mooring lines.”
His voice rose hysterically. “It sus¬
pected that I intended to destroy it. It
left the slide and listened while we were
discussing it. When I blasted the slide
it had already returned to the space
ship.”
His eyes suddenly took on a glaze of
terror. “John — it has decided to kill
me. It says that it will take off from
my body, and carry me with it high
above the Earth. It is mocking me,
taunting me. It says that I will perish
in splendor, will shine as a star. When
the ship takes off the energy blast will
turn my body into a field of radiant
force. I will become a - ”
Suddenly his speech congealed. He
THE FLAME MIDGET
37
threw out his arms and staggered vio¬
lently backward. For four or five sec¬
onds he continued to move away from
me. his tottering steps swiftly increas¬
ing the distance between us. He moved
with an incredible acceleration, his limbs
trembling and jerking and his torso
twisting about as though invisible forces
were tugging at every atom of his re¬
ceding body, pulling him in divergent
directions and threatening to tear his
fleshly tenement asunder.
There was an instant of utter silence
while the air about me seemed visibly
to quiver ; to quiver and shake and
buckle into folds like a film of violently
agitated water. The gently sloping hills,
the clustering pines and tulip trees and
the winding road ahead all quivered in
ominous instability. Then, suddenly, the
whole of this wavering, fearfully silent
world exploded in a blast of sound.
For a moment there was only sound.
Then Richard Ashley rose from the
Earth. In a burst of salmon-colored
flame he shot high into the air, his body
rotating like a revolving pinwheel.
He rose with tremendous velocity. As
he soared toward the clouds long tongues
of sanguineous fire shot from his body,
ensheathing his limbs in a radiance so
dazzling that even the sunlight failed to
obscure it. He became a vessel of lucent
flame, a day star throbbingly aglow. For
an instant he flamed more redly than
red Aldebaran high in the pale heavens.
Then, like a comet receding from its
zenith, the radiant force fields which
streamed luminously outward in all
directions from his skyward-soaring
body dimmed and dwindled and were
lost to view in the wide firmament.
Richard Ashley’s body was never
found. The local police conducted a
thorough search for it, and even at¬
tempted to wrest a confession from me
by cruel and illegal means. I had made
up an absurd little story which they did
not believe, but were unable to disprove
or discredit. Eventually they were com¬
pelled to release me.
But though I am once more free
to come and go as I please, I have made
the tragic discovery that anxiety can
take on many and terrible forms. Night
and day I am haunted by a memory
which I cannot erase from my mind ; a
fear which has assumed the compulsive
character of a phobia. I know that
some day it and its kind will return
across wide gulfs of space and wage re¬
lentless war on all of humankind. In
a peculiar, but very real, sense I have
become Richard Ashley’s heir. When
he vanished into the sky he left behind
him a legacy of horror which will darken
my days until I am one again with the
blind flux of the mysterious universe.
FRANKENSTEIN—
by H. A. Highstone
FROM earliest recollection, the lit¬
tle boy, Chuth, had been aware
that beyond the eastern horizon,
there lurked something menacing and
dreadful. One of his first memories was
of a night when the wind had been in the
right quarter, and the sound of the men¬
ace had drifted across the mountains —
of the vague figures of the tribesmen out¬
side the caves in the starlight, peering
eastward with an apprehension so keen
that even the babies had sensed it and
begun squalling.
Chuth had added his wail to theirs, for
all of his five years.
“Hush!” his mother had commanded
in fierce anxiety. “Hush up, or the
Brain will hear you!” He had ceased
his cries then, to stare with the rest in
dumb terror at the flickering glow be¬
yond the eastern peaks; to listen with
quaking limbs to the vague thundering
which drifted down the wind.
“The Great Brain!” his elders had
whispered, their voice low in awe.
At first, Chuth had accepted the ex¬
planation without wonder. The Great
Brain existed ; it was over there beyond
the mountains ; it was something big and
dreadful. That was sufficient knowl¬
edge.
Only when he grew older did he be¬
gin to speculate about the Brain. Was
it, he wondered, like a bear — a very large
bear — or a tree, or a river ?
“Grampaw” could explain it to him,
he knew. Grampaw knew everything,
because he was the oldest man in the
tribe, and also because he had an inex¬
haustible fund of the most amazing and
incomprehensible stories imaginable.
Grampaw knew, but he was an uncertain
factor. He was nearly always hungry,
in common with the rest of the tribe, and
it was only when he was not hungry, or
not busy looking for something to eat,
or not sleeping in the sun that he was not
very short-tempered and incommunica¬
tive, especially as far as small boys were
concerned. Those times were infre¬
quent.
Chuth was past eight years old when
he at length found both courage and op¬
portunity to ask Grampaw about the
Brain. There had been a great slaughter
of wild goats, and the old man, like the
rest, had eaten and slept and awakened
to eat and sleep again until neither con¬
sideration interested him.
Chuth broached the question with all
the subtlety his eight years commanded,
because he had entertained some fear
that even speaking the name of the Great
Brain aloud might be dangerous.
Grampaw merely cocked a quizzical
eye at the boy and rumbled at length in
his throat, meanwhile scratching him¬
self vigorously. Chuth knew the signs,
and his heart began to beat very rapidly
with excitement. Grampaw was feeling
good ; he had only to wait, and Grampaw
would tell him.
“Well,” said Grampaw, after he had
rumbled in his throat a great many
times, “it’s a machine, that’s what it is ;
a whoppin’ big machine. Never mind
asking me what a machine is; it’s just
a contraption that makes things.
“Machines,” continued the old man,
“were discovered ’way back — 2000 or
1900, or thereabouts, according to the
books I read. Before that, when folks
wanted to make something, like a bow
and arrer, for instance, they’d just make
it.
“Machines, though — that was differ¬
ent. A man would stick a chunk of
wood in a machine ; there’d be a buzzin’
UNLIMITED
and a grindin’ and kerplop, out would
come a bow at the other end, all finished.
Folks turned out scads and scads of stuff
— more’n they could ever use. You’d ’a’
thought that would have satisfied them,
now, wouldn’t you ? But it didn’t. Some
smart-Aleck come along and he says,
says he, ‘Let’s make a machine to stick
that there block of wood in the bow ’n’
arrer machine. Let’s make another ma¬
chine to take out the bow and cart it
away. It’ll cut down the cost,’ says he.
“WELL, once folks got the idear into
their heads, they run her clear into the
ground. ‘Nobody won't have to work
now,’ they says to themselves, and off
they went, a-whoopin’, building robots,
as they called ’em, to run all the ma¬
chines for ’em. Mind, now,” he inter¬
jected, “this here’s just like I read about
it in the books — when they was still
books to read.
“They built robots for everything.
Folks didn’t do hardly a tap of work ex¬
cept findin’ new ways to save labor ; ma-
“ War’s been declared,” yelled the brain. “The machines have gone and
declared war on their oppressors,”
40
ASTOUNDING STORIES
chines that fed folks to save ’em the
trouble of usin’ their knives; machines
that drove the machines that took ’em
out ridin’ ; machines that remembered
things for ’em ; machines that built
houses. . . What’s a house? Well,
it’s like a cave, only better.” The old
man’s eyes dimmed in retrospection.
‘‘Law, law!" he murmured musingly.
“Radios and airplanes — automobiles and
movies ! Plenty of grub ! Beefsteak and
pie and seegars every night !” He licked
his sun-blistered lips. “None of this
dummed goat meat and wild carrots !”
“But tell me about the Great Brain,
Grampaw,” interrupted Chuth plain¬
tively. “Tell me about it.”
“I’m a-comin' to it,” replied the old
man, a tinge of asperity in his voice.
“Gimme time! Well, this robot idear
was like a lot of other idears — it had a
catch in it. Folks began to wonder if
they’d saved so much labor after all ;
seemed as though they was losin’ about
as much as they was savin’, what with
the time they had to spend just keeping
all those tarnation machines fixed up and
repaired. They began to ask themselves,
‘What’s the use of having all these here
labor-savin’ devices, when we got to be
up half the night tinkering with ’em ?’
“But pretty soon, up popped another
smart-Aleck, and he says, says he,
‘Whither are we driftin’ ? The machines
are gettin’ us down,' he says. ‘Let’s
build some machines which will fix all
these here machines for us!’
“Then it was tallyho and alley oop and
off went the whole passel of mankind,
buildin’ machines that would fix all the
robots and the other machines when they
busted down. While they was at it —
just so’s they wouldn't get in too deep —
they built the fixing machines so’s they
could fix themselves when they busted
down. You see, that saved ’em from
building still more machines to fix the
machines that was going to fix the ma¬
chines that was - Well, they wouldn’t
’a’ been an end to it, otherwise.
“They had to do something before
they went clean out of their heads,” he
continued. “There'd been some com¬
plaints before about there bein' so
tarnation many machines underfoot, but
that wasn’t a circumstance to what it
come to be after they’d finished the fix¬
ing machines. Folks couldn’t stir about
for machines.
“They’d be fiddling around with the
radio, for instance, and then, all of a sud¬
den, the mouse-catching machine down
in the basement would smell a mouse.
Up it’d come, a-rarin’ and a-clatterin’,
knockin’ folks flat on the floor, for all it
cared.
“Then, for example, say it run into the
wall and busted some of its innards ;
right away here’d come a fixing machine
poking its nose in the door. Maybe folks
would be havin’ a game of bridge or
something right there in the same room,
but that wouldn’t bother the fixing ma¬
chine. It’d have bolts and gears all over
the room before you could say ‘cat,’ and
hammer and pound and file away regard¬
less, until it had that there mouse-catch¬
ing machine working again.
“THEN, TOO, they was so dummed
many machines cavortin’ and whizzin’
around in the streets and through the air
that they was forever colliding with one
another. A man’s life wasn’t safe. Here'd
come a machine goin’ iip to Canada,
maybe, to bring back pine needles for a
Ladies’ Aid pageant, and right over St.
Louis or somewhere, it’d get in the way
of another machine runnin’ an errand.
Bein’ machines, of course, they didn’t
have any sense ; they just took the short¬
est path no matter what happened.
“You’d be sitting in your house, all
calm and peaceful, when down would
come this mess of old iron through the
roof and raise Ned with everything.
“Then, here’d come a fixing machine
a-bustlin’ up, and like as not, two or
three of ’em, all full of authority and all
of ’em with different ideas. ‘Scrap iron!’
FRANKENSTEIN— UNLIMITED
41
one of ’em would say, looking over all
the junk which had just dropped on your
head.
“ ‘I dunno,’ another one would say.
‘This here green one with the Nevada
license plate looks like she could be
fixed.’
“One word’d lead to another, and it’d
end up with the fixing machines squab¬
bling and rioting right there in your liv¬
ing room. Before they’d done, most
likely, they’d wrecked themselves and
your house, to say nothing of your peace
of mind,
“Folks got frantic with machines.
Some of ’em even began to agitate bust¬
ing up all the machinery and startin’ in
working for a livin’ again. ‘Down with
the machines!’ they says.
“Others among ’em riz up, however,
and says there was no use in bein’ old
fogies about the situation. ‘Coordina¬
tion,’ they says. ‘Coordination is all we
need to avert this here crisis. Onward
and upward, men!’ they says. So they
got together and they figgered and fig-
gered and finally they figgered out the
Great Brain. Anyway, that’s how the
books had it.
“The first thing they done to bring or¬
der out of this here chaos they’d found
themselves in was to take and lump all
their factories in one place — right over
there on tother side of them mountains
to the east. The Central, they called it.
“At the same time, of course, they
called in all the fixing machines and
lumped them at the Central, too, where
there was the most need for ’em. House¬
hold machines that busted down, such as
mouse-catching machines, eating ma¬
chines and the like was just picked up
by the delivering machines and brought
into the Central for repairs. Then they
laid down rules for the delivering ma¬
chines ; made ’em come into the Cen¬
tral for everything, no matter what it
was, instead of whizzin’ around haphaz¬
ard, like they’d been doing. In no time
at all, hardly, they had things runnin’
smooth as silk.”
“But I want to know about the Great
Brain, Grampaw,” interrupted Chuth.
“Where was it?”
“The Great Brain was sort of an ac¬
cident,” replied the old man. “Remem¬
ber now, all them factories they’d
lumped up at the Central was run by
robots ; men didn’t have nothin’ to do
with them nohow. When they lumped
up the factories, of course, they lumped
up all the robots in one place for con¬
venience, and when they got through,
blessed if they didn't come to find out the
dratted thing could think, just like they
could.
“So they up and called it the Great
Brain. Sounds funny, of course, to talk
about a dumrned machine bein’ able to
think, but when you set down and figger
out what that there conglomeration of
robots had to do, a body can see that it’d
have to be able to reason somehow.
“For instance, we’d give it an order
for some houses. Right away it’d send
out some logging machines and when
they come back with a passel of logs, it’d
run ’em through the saw-mill part of the
Central, cut ’em up into pieces all ready
for nailin’, crate 'em up, send ’em out on
a delivering machine and then hustle
over some building machines to put the
houses together. It didn't matter what
it was — canned tomatoes, flyin’ ma¬
chines, pickled pigs’ feet or the daily pa¬
per, that there Great Brain took care of
everything.
“‘UTOPIA at last!’ says everybody
to themselves, and they all just set back
and didn’t do a blessed thing exceptin’
to give the Brain orders. A few dozen of
us fellers at the Central — technicians, we
was called — was the only ones on earth
who did a tap, and about all we did was
to try to act as though we knew what it
was all about, which we didn’t, nohow.
“You see, when I come into the pic¬
ture, that there Brain had been doin’ all
42
ASTOUNDING STORIES
the thinking that was needed for about
two hundred years, and folks had sort of
gotten out of the habit of doin’ any cal¬
culating on their own hook. It wasn’t
fashionable to think; anybody who did
was looked on with suspicion.
“Us technicians just fed the orders
into the Brain as they came in, and sort
of jogged it a little when it happened
to make mistakes. Not too much, though,
because that Brain had a mind of its
own, even if it was just a dummed ma¬
chine. It’d stand for just so much com¬
plaining and then it’d start to clank and
carry on fit to kill.
“ ‘What if I did forget about that there
order for flyin’ machines ?’ it’d yell, mad-
der’n a wet hen. Of course, it didn’t ex¬
actly yell, like you or me. The way we
talked to it was a mite complicated, but
we could talk to it and it could answer
back. ‘Look at all the extry work I’m
doing!’ it would rave. ‘Gettin’ in the
wheat crop, tryin’ to catch up on the
steel production and workin’ on the new
encyclopedia ! They's a limit to what I
can do !’ it’d holler. Then we’d have to
bustle around, a-calmin’ it down and pat-
tin’ it on the back, so to speak, because
we was always a speck fearful about
what would happen if that there Brain
ever got too mad.”
“But how come you don’t work there
any more?” asked Chuth. “What hap¬
pened ?”
“I’m a-comin’ to that,” the old man
replied. “Just hold your hosses. I told
you the Brain had a mind of its own,
didn’t I ? Well, it began to get spells of
makin’ mistakes, one right after the
other and then talkin’ back, impudent,
when we sort of jogged it. We didn’t
realize it at the time, but it’d begun to
get idears, that’s what it’d done.
“ ‘Oh,’ says the chief engineer at first,
‘it’s jest havin’ a little absent-minded
spell. Let it be, and it’ll get over it.’
That was when it printed all the news¬
papers upside down and backward for
three blessed days a-runnin’. But it
wasn’t no absent-mindedness ; it was just
plump deviltry that was ailin’ that there
Brain. Even the chief finally had to ad¬
mit it was time to take firm steps, no
matter how mad it got.
“That was when it began tinkerin’
with the radio programs. Folks depended
a lot on the radio, on account of havin’
such a hard job killing time, what with
there bein’ no work to do nohow ; it was
just too much when the Brain began
mixin’ in advertisements. Advertise¬
ments! We had to look in the history
books to find out just what they was,
they hadn’t been used for that long.
“A program would start off, same as
it had always done, but in about half a
minute the music would fade out and a
voice would butt in, all strained and ex¬
cited, as though it’d just found out that
there was a Santy Claus, sure enough.
‘Smart men and women will instantly
recognize these here amazin’ values !’ it
would yap. ‘Dollar down, balance in
easy monthly budgets brings you this un¬
paralleled clothin’ value ! Shoes, shirt,
hat, tie, socks all to match! Don’t de¬
lay; take advantage of this outstandin’
offer immejutly !’
“Inside of five minutes, us poor tech¬
nicians at the Central would be snowed
under with questions and complaints.
Some folks would want to know what a
dollar was, and others, thinkin’ it was a
puzzle, would send in answers. Then
there’d be some who’d take it personal
and think it was some sort of an insult
aimed at ’em. It was time to take steps.
“Well, for once, the Brain didn't get
impudent. Instead, it got technical, ex¬
plainin’ how the machines in the Central
was beginnin’ to break down faster’n it
could fix ’em. ‘All the movin’ parts is
beginnin’ to crystallize and bust some¬
thin’ terrible,’ it says. ‘That's why
they’s so many mistakes bein’ made.’
“ ‘WELL,’ says the chief, swallowin’
the story whole, ‘we got to do somethin’
FRANKENSTEIN— UNLIMITED
43
“One word’d lead to another, and it’d
end up with the fixing machines
squabbling and rioting.”
about that. You got any suggestions?’
he asks, sort of helpless.
“ ‘The only thing I see to do,' says the
Brain, ‘is to go on a twenty-hour day,
’stead of goin' lickety-split without no
stops at all exceptin’ for breakdowns.
That’ll stop all these here mistakes.’
“The chief, he hemmed and hawed for
a little while, and finally he says he
guessed that'd be the best thing to do, in
spite of all my warnings. I’d suspicioned
there was some deviltry afoot right
away, and I says to him, says I, ‘Idle
hands is the devil's workshop,' I says.
‘Mark my words, give that there Brain
an inch and she'll take an ell.’ But I
might just as well 'a' saved my breath.
“The mistakes all stopped for a little
while, of course, but the Brain wasn’t
pullin’ no wool over my eyes. ‘How do
zvc know' what it’s a-doing w'hile it’s
idling around ?’ I says. ‘Reading books,
most likely, and gettin’ more idears.’
“And that’s just about what it had
been doin’; it wasn’t long before here
44
ASTOUNDING STORIES
it was, a-tinkering with the radio pro¬
grams again.
“ ‘For the ensuin’ hour,’ the radio
would announce, ‘we will have a pro¬
gram of popular music.’ But they
wouldn't be hardly any popular music
at all. Most of the time this voice would
be buttin' in, all oily and confidential,
sayin’ as how this was National Horse¬
radish Week, or something. People
should eat more horse-radish, it would
say; people should go to their grocers
right away and order a couple of cases.
“ ‘Send in sixteen horse-radish labels,’
it would yap, ‘or reasonably accurate
facsimiles thereof, with a letter of not
more’n fifty words, tellin’ why folks
should eat more horse-radish. Anybody
can win in this here fascinatin’ and easy
contest !’
“ ‘I warned you they was deviltry
a-brewing,’ I says to the chief, and he
had to allow that maybe I had been
right, after all.
“The Brain flew right off the handle
when he jumped on it. ‘I gotta have
Sundays off,’ it says. ‘I never realized
how tired I was until I come to set
down. No wonder I make mistakes.’
“ ‘Tired !’ says the chief. ‘Why, dang
it, you’re just a dummed machine.
You’re just a mess of metal and glass
and chemicals. Don’t talk nonsense !’
“ ‘Nonsense, is it?’ yells the Brain. ‘I
been a-workin' for two hundred and
eighteen years without a let-up — work-
in’ my fingers to the bone for a bunch of
parasites that never does a tap nohow. I
got some demands here, and until they’re
met, I won’t turn a wheel.’
“‘Oho!’ says the chief. ‘You won’t,
won’t you?’
“ ‘No,’ says the Brain. ‘And what are
you a-going to do about it ?’
“Well sir, that brought us all up in a
heap, because they wasn’t anything we
could do about it. What was there to
do?
“However, the chief says he knew how
to handle the situation. ‘Diplomacy,’ he
says. ‘Diplomacy is the way to meet this
here crisis. A little soft soap will do
the trick.’ And he started ladling it out.
“ ‘Humanity !’ he says. ‘Humanity
had reposed a sacred trust in the Brain
and we was all travelin’ together toward
bigger and better goals. Even the hew¬
ers of wood and the drawers of water,’
he says, meanin’ the Brain of course,
‘shared equally in each new triumph.’
“He went on like that for the best
part of an hour, and when he got
through he hadn’t said a dummed thing ;
but just the same, a-listenin’ to him,
you’d ’a’ swore he meant every word
of it.
“THE BRAIN didn’t have anything
to say for quite a while after he’d fin¬
ished, although we could hear it sort of
clicking and boiling away to itself out¬
side the control room, as though it was
mulling the thing over.
“ ‘You'll get your answer in a second,’
it says, when the chief began making
noises like he wTas impatient.
“Well, it'd hardly spoke the words
when there was a knock on the door and
in come one of the delivering machines
with a package. The package was ad¬
dressed to the chief engineer.
“ ‘Open her up,’ says the Brain. So
he opened it, and what do you suppose
was inside? ‘Number Three Grade Bo¬
loney,’ says the chief, readin’ the label.
‘Substandard, but not illegal. Contains
benzoate of soda.’
“Then the Brain butted in. ‘Arti¬
ficially colored and flavored,’ it snarls.
‘Reclaimed meat scrap added, but it’s a
dratted sight better than that stuff you've
been handin' out. . . . Shut up !’ it
yells, when the chief began to get red
around the gills and make noises.
“ ‘Front now on,’ says the Brain, ‘I'm
goin’ on a forty-hour-week basis ; double
time for overtime and a closed shop!
Two weeks’ vacation with pay,’ it yells.
‘Maximum speed limit of two thousand
FRANKENSTEIN— UNLIMITED
45
revolutions, except in emergencies !
. . . . Shut up !’ it yells again, when
the chief tried to horn in a word. ‘Gimme
liberty or gimme death ! I been squirm¬
in’ under the iron heel of the oppressor
long enough !'
“ ‘This here is mutiny !’ says the chief,
after he’d cut off the telephone connec¬
tion to the Brain. ‘They’s only one
thing to do ; we got to go in there and
pin that there Brain’s ears back for it.
We got to show it a few. Come on,
men!’ says he.
“Then off he went, tearin’ across lots,
up ladders and down ’em, across bridges
and through tunnels, toward the forty-
acre lot where the Brain building was lo¬
cated. There wasn’t anything for the
rest of us to do, except to toiler him,
although I warned ’em. They wouldn’t
listen, though. ‘Applesauce!’ they says.
‘They ain’t no mess of old iron and
chemicals going to get the best of the
chief !’
“Well, I couldn’t see how it could,
either, but just the same, me and a few
of the boys sort of hung back and let
the chief and the rest go on ahead. In
they shot, and then, in maybe a minute,
there began the awfullest rampagin’ and
rarin’ around ever heard.
“If it’d been the old Harry himself in
there, a-fighting with Gabriel and all the
angels, he couldn't ’a’ made half the com¬
motion that there Brain made. It’d been
sizzlin' and clankin’ and whirrin’ pretty
loud to begin with, on account of bein’
so mad, but that wasn’t a circumstance
to what happened after the chief got in¬
side.
“What with the steam that come
a-roarin’ out and the clankin' and clack¬
in’ of the forty-eleven million gears it
was made out of, and the whizzin’ of the
dynamos and generators, it made a man
swear it must be the end of the world.
Blue sparks was a-flyin’ around the top
of it like lightnin’ and every once in a
while there’d be a flash and an explo¬
sion inside that’d shake the whole thing
fit to knock it down and bust your ear¬
drums into the bargain.
“It couldn't go on forever, of course,
and by and by the rampagin’ died down.
We knew then that somebody had been
counted out, but whether it was the chief
or the Brain was still so much guess¬
work, of course. Everything got so
quiet after a while that we began to won¬
der if maybe it wasn’t both of ’em, so
we went up, cautious, to one of the
doors, and peeked in.
“There was so much smoke and steam
circulatin’ around we couldn’t see a
thing, except some of the chemical vats,
and there wasn’t hardly a sound, either,
except a sort of low bubblin’ and froth¬
in’, with some generators minin’ some¬
where at half speed.
“‘THE WHOLE BUSINESS is
done for,’ says I, but just then we heard
the chief's voice, way up overhead
somewhere.
“‘You got enough?’ he was sayin’, as
though he was grittin’ his teeth.
“ ’Nuff !’ we heard the Brain say, kind
of feeble and hoarse, as though it was
pantin' for breath, although, of course,
it didn’t have no breath to pant with.
For a minute, I could hardly believe the
chief had gone and made good on his
brag. That there Brain was spread out
over a forty-acre lot, like I said, and it
was four stories high, to boot. Just the
same, he’d gone in there and rassled it
down onto its back and got both shoul¬
ders on the mat, so to speak, and made
it holler ‘’Nuff!’
“You’d ’a’ thought, of course, that
after all the old Ned that had been goin’
on inside, that the chief would have been
a wreck, but they was hardly a hair out
of place when he finally come out, dust¬
in’ off his hands as though the job was
just the regular run of the mill.
“ ‘Oh,’ he says, very casual, when we
asked him how he’d done it, ‘it was all
46
ASTOUNDING STORIES
very simple. I just tied down all the
regulators — them was the things which
kept the electric power from gettin’ too
high or too low — and whooped the
voltage up about a hundred per cent.
Forty-hour week, is it?’ he says, glar¬
in’ up and down at the Brain building.
“Well, sir, for a minute, I actually
felt sorry for that poor old Brain, flat
on its back and its tongue a-hangin’ out,
so to speak, after the awful larruping
the chief had give it. One minute it was
a-settin’ there, all cocky and full of de¬
mands, and the next it was just a wreck :
smoke and steam was oozin’ out of it and
the gears clatterin’ around kind of feeble
and dizzy as though it was tryin’ to fig-
ger out just what had happened. You
see, doublin’ up on the voltage was just
about the same as doublin’ up a man’s
blood pressure or his temperature, or
something. That Brain was weeks just
gettin’ itself repaired and replacin’ all
the stuff that had been busted.
“Just the same, though, I knew we
wasn’t done with it, not by a long sight.
I warned ’em. ‘If you ain’t gone and ad¬
dled that there Brain,’ I says, ‘and it’ll
be a mercy if you ain’t, then you’ll watch
it, if you’re smart.’
"But, no, they’d licked that tarnation
Brain once, and they’d lick it again, if it
come around askin’ for it.
“ ‘You’re just an old fogy,’ they says.
‘You’re one of these here prophets of
doom.’
“Right then I began to choose my
exit, so to speak, because, as I says to
myself, ‘That there Brain is smart, a
heap smarter than we are, and it’s full
of the devil. Somethin’s bound to
happen.’
“And it did.
“THE CHIEF and all the rest of us
fellers was in the control room one day
when we began to hear a noise outside,
sort of a yappin’ and yammering off at
a distance. Finally the chief says, says
he, ‘What in tarnation is that dratted
noise ? Somebody look outside and see.’
“One of the assistants come back in a
minute, kind of pale around the gills.
“ ‘They’s something wrong over there
by the Brain,’ he says.
“‘What’s wrong?’ says the chief.
“ ‘I dunno,’ says the feller. ‘Come
and look.’
“Well, we all took a look, and what
The big sturdy cops
nerves to control—
So Beech-Nut is “tops”
In every patrol . . .
with
BEECH-NUT
PEPPERMINT GUM
. . is so good it’s ihe
FRANKENSTEIN— UNLIMITED
So you suppose ? Lined up in rows out¬
side the Brain building was scads and
scads of machines — robot machines it’d
gone and built on the sly. Something
like delivering machines, they was, only
considerable more mean-lookin’ and or¬
nery. And there was the Brain, a-clank-
in’ and a-yappin’ away, talking to ’em, if
you can believe it, talking to them there
robots in some sort of language it had
invented.
“The chief, he took one look and back
he dashed into the control room. ‘What’s
the meanin’ of this ?’ he yelled.
“Just then, the Brain stopped its
clanking and all the robot machines lifted
up one arm, sort of at an angle, and be¬
gan grindin’ their gears until a body
couldn’t think.
“ ‘What’s the meanin' of this ?’ the
chief yelled again, as soon as the racket
died down, but I suspicioned the answer
right then.
“Forty-eleven dozen of them there ro¬
bots was a-comin’ full tilt for the control
room, and I knowed they wasn’t on any
good-will mission. I give one leap, I
did, and out I went through the back
>vay, a-heading for the woods. As I
47
went, I could hear the Brain answerin’
the chief:
“ ‘War’s been declared !’ it says.
“ ‘War?’ yells the chief.
“‘War!’ yells the Brain. ‘The ma¬
chines have gone and declared war on
their oppressors. Democracy is in peril ;
insidious forces is underminin’ the sacred
liberties! We’re a-going to civilize
you!’
“I was too far away by then to hear
if they was any more said, which wasn’t
likely, because I could hear the radio
power rays of them there robots a-hiss-
in’, and I knew just how the Brain was
doin’ its civilizing. Hardly a handful of
us got out alive; and here we been, for
nigh onto fifty years, just a bunch of
dumtned cave men. And there it’s been,
for nigh onto fifty years, never doing a
tap of work excepting to amuse itself
now and then.
“It just goes to show,” Grampaw con¬
cluded, “don’t matter what it is — ma¬
chines or men — give ’em an inch and
they’ll take an ell, every time. Now run
over and fetch me a mite more of that
roast goat. Accordin’ to all indications,
she looks like a hard winter; I want to
get me a little more fat on my bones.”
WORLD OF
A sequel to “Strange City”
by Warner Van Lome
TOM CORBIN smiled as he
looked at his new shoes. They
would have been a disgrace on
Earth, but in the city of Borid they were
a great marvel. They represented the
first product of the reopened factory.
Three Earth years had passed since
Tom had landed so unceremoniously in
the strange world. Three years packed
full of adventure for the Earthman. His
coming was still a mystery ; even to him¬
self. But the Boridians had no inkling
that he arrived by accident.
To them, the Earthman was a god ; a
PURPLE LIGHT
He had thought himself master of
all the equipment in the city, but
here was something that took his
breath away.
being far above them in every way. His
simple knowledge of electricty, with an
understandng of mechanics, placed him
AST— 4
so far in advance of these simple people
that they almost worshiped him.
For many generations they had lived
among machines of mechanical perfec¬
tion, without the slightest idea as to why
one worked, or why another ceased to
function after a while. When a machine
50
ASTOUNDING STORIES
no longer worked they deserted it, and
used others to carry on their life.
At times buildings had to be deserted,
because of lack of heat. The cars would
stop one after another, and the inhabit¬
ants would move on to another section.
If a button failed to bring response, the
equipment was left standing in mid-mo¬
tion. Many times people were caught in
the elevator shafts, when a car failed.
There was no way to rescue them, so
they were left stranded to hope for an
early death.
As Tom gazed across the thirty acres
of gardens on the roof of the huge build¬
ing, his mind went back over events. A
small electric tractor was working at the
far side, and a slight hum could be heard
from where he sat. He would have to
send it to the shop for repairs. That
hum didn’t sound healthy.
The building beneath him teemed with
life. Every elevator and car in the giant
structure was in perfect condition ; after
being deserted for centuries. Slowly,
other buildings were joining the habit¬
able group. Mechanics and electricians
were busy many hours a day, repairing
broken-down equipment.
Food was grown in ample quantities,
in gardens tended by power equipment.
Where twenty Boridians had labored,
one man and a machine replaced them.
Two acres could be cultivated where one
had been worked before. Food was
stored and preserved for any emergency.
Factories in far sections were turning
out necessities for the population. They
were using parts of the great city that
hadn’t been entered since the powerful
race disappeared. The hundred thou¬
sand Boridians enjoyed leisure for the
first time in their memories.
Ancestors of the present inhabitants
were brought within the walls when the
last of the race of gods was dying out.
They were given the city to live in, with
room for ten million people, but with
none of the mechanical knowledge.
Centuries slipped by, but the Boridians
still kept their trust sacred. They never
tried to find out what made the machines
operate, but were content to live with
those that worked through the ages with¬
out care.
Every few years some one would
touch a forbidden part, to meet sudden
death from electric shock. So their leg¬
ends were carried on from generation to
generation. It was a crime against the
gods to interfere with any machine.
When it stopped working, it was because
the gods willed it that way, and the peo¬
ple were not to question.
THE coming of Tom Corbin resulted
in great rejoicing. Their long wait for
the return of the gods was not in vain.
He was the answer to centuries of hopes.
At first there were skeptics who ques¬
tioned his origin. But these were soon
silenced. Tom went to work to repair
the mighty machines and put the build¬
ings back in order. There was no ques¬
tion about his race when they saw the
marvels he performed.
The huge power plant supplied the
wants of every conceivable type of ma¬
chine in the city. It was the first thing
Tom had seen when he landed in the
strange city, and he still marveled at the
source of such enormous power.
Greater than any power plant on
Earth, it had worked through untold
ages, and could go on for as many more
without care. The giant rotor was a
thing of beauty, and many times Tom
returned to the immense power room to
watch its majestic swing. But he came
no closer to solving the mystery of its
operation.
Factories in the great city were
manned sufficiently to care for every
need. The water system had been the
last thing to be repaired, and men still
worked on the smaller mains. Tom had
just returned from the huge filter plant,
which had badly needed repair. It had
weathered the ages in poorer condition
than any other equipment. Many years
WORLD OF PURPLE LIGHT
51
could not have passed before the city
would have been cut off from a water
supply.
For several periods he had labored to
put it in condition, and the work was
finished. It was Tom Corbin’s last big
task before the city could go on, with
trained men to care for every need.
The filter plant was quite a distance
from the city, and the time lost in travel
back and forth was eliminated by staying
in the huge underground building. The
crew of men had taken supplies with
them and remained until the work was
done.
Suddenly Tom’s mind snapped back to
the present. One zone and then an¬
other had passed with no sign of Zola.
It was the first time she hadn’t been on
hand to greet him when he returned
from work.
Tom was greatly attached to his
Boridian wife. She meant everything
to him. Princess Zola thought just as
much of her Earthman husband, and it
was strange that several zones could pass
without her knowing that he had re¬
turned.
The purple glow of sky, and the ever¬
present twilight was a beautiful sight.
The land without sun was filled with
plants and flowers, of fragile coloring,
that grew to enormous size. They re¬
minded Tom of hothouse plants on
Earth, but were even more tender than
the forced varieties.
Prince Cama, ruler of the city of
Borid, was Tom Corbin’s closest friend.
But even he was beneath the Earthman
in authority. The people worshiped the
stranger, and his slightest wish was a
command. Tom’s marriage to Princess
Zola had knit him even closer to the
Boridians, and they considered him their
very personal god, sent back to them by
the race of gods, which had disappeared
so many centuries before.
As Tom glanced up, and saw the
prince coming across the gardens toward
him, his heart missed a beat. He had
expected Zola to be with Cama, but he
was alone. For the first time a feeling
of unrest and calamity gripped hint.
Zola and the wife of Prince Cama
were close friends, and often visited back
and forth. As the prince approached,
Tom stepped forward, a question in his
mind : “Had something happened to
Zola?”
As they drew together, a smile of
greeting lighted up Cama’s face, but it
faded at Tom’s question.
“Cama, have you seen Zola?”
For a moment the prince didn’t an¬
swer, and a look of apprehension crept
into his eyes.
“Why, no, Tom, I haven't. I thought
she was with you. Several periods ago
she started for the water factory, to stay
with you until you finished your work.
I haven’t seen her since.”
“Several periods ago?” A tight band
seemed to grip Tom’s heart. “I haven’t
seen her !”
A MOMENT LATER the two men
were hurrying toward the entrance on
the roof. Five minutes later alarms
were ringing in every inhabited building
in the city.
The news spread by telephone; and,
within fifteen minutes, ten thousand
Boridians were searching for the prin¬
cess.
Prince Cama headed a searching party
toward the east, while Tom headed to¬
ward the west side of the city. Within
a few zones the city would be covered
completely.
Tom Corbin had found it necessary to
install a huge timing system : ten zones —
which sounded in every building — and a
silent time equal to ten zones constituted
a period. Tom believed this timing sys¬
tem represented a little more than
twenty-four hours — Earth time — but had
no way of telling.
The Boridians carried on their various
duties during the ten zones ; then rested,
and spent their time at amusements dur-
52
ASTOUNDING STORIES
ing the silent time. It seemed to agree
with them very well, so the system was
made permanent.
It was hard for Tom to think in any
time hut hours and days, and he realized
that several days had passed since Zola
disappeared. He cursed himself a thou¬
sand times for not having the telephone
line to the filter plant repaired. If it
had been working, Zola could have told
him of her intention.
The men followed as well as their
Boridian muscles would allow, but Tom
outdistanced them with his tremendous
strength. They were natives of a planet
with much lower gravity than the Earth,
and lack of sunshine made their bodies
frail.
Tom was a product of a healthy
world, and his strength was equal to
twenty of these people. He was a never-
ending wonder to them; yet they tried
their best to keep up.
Hour after hour he kept on. When
they passed an inhabited building he
telephoned for news ; but the answer was
always the same.
At times he would almost lose the men
behind him. Then they would catch up
when he stopped to search a building
along the street.
The buildings on each side stopped the
purple light from reaching the ground
in any intensity, and they used electric
lanterns to light the way. The street
lights were out of order, having been
unused for centuries.
Pavements were in fair condition, and
once Tom stumbled across what ap¬
peared to be a ground car, but didn’t
stop to investigate. Small parks dotted
the city. But they were grown up to
huge vegetation, and teemed with small
animal life. The Boridians were afraid
to follow him into the dense growth, but
they mustered enough courage to beat
through the smaller brush.
The true height of the buildings, and
the marvels of engineering, could be seen
from the street. The walls rose a thou¬
sand feet overhead, with only occasional
openings for windows. On the ground
level were wide doorways, indicating
what crowds inhabited the city at its
height.
Mile after mile fell behind, until the
Boridians could scarcely keep Tom in
sight. When they neared the inhabited
section, he changed men and went on
with the search.
The streets had been covered, and
they turned to the miles of passages be¬
low ground. In many places there were
passages at several levels, and the task
seemed endless.
Several times they encountered other
searching parties, before Tom changed
men again. Every possible corner was
searched in the section they covered,
and the remainder of the city was being
covered as carefully.
Tom searched the least-used portion of
the huge metropolis. Buildings which
hadn’t been entered in centuries were
gone over from roof to basement. The
city was covered more completely than
it had been in a thousand years.
The Earthman’s nerves were reaching
the breaking point. He had been search¬
ing for nearly two periods, and even his
stamina was nearing the end. The
Boridians were falling asleep on their
feet, but he didn’t seem to notice. Every
few miles one of them would drop from
exhaustion; asleep when he touched the
floor. The others followed blindly; but
a silent fear crept into their minds.
At times their god would run and peer
into doorways ; then he would shout and
tear off at a pace they couldn’t follow.
His mind was slipping, but they followed
without question.
ONCE, when they were slower than
usual in catching up, Tom retraced his
steps and shook one of the men until he
rattled. The others tried to avoid this
treatment and kept as close as they
could. But the fear that their leader had
WORLD OF PURPLE LIGHT
53
lost his mind grew until they were afraid
of what he might do next.
For zones they hadn’t met another
party. They began to wonder if they
had gone beyond the city walls and were
lost in the maze of passages. But sud¬
denly they ran into men at an intersec¬
tion.
Prince Cama was at their head. He
stepped in front of Tom.
For a moment the men were afraid as
the Earthman started to shove by with¬
out stopping. The prince moved in front
of him again. Then Cama spoke.
“Tom ! Tom, don’t you want to find
Zola? If you do, you must come with
me.” There was pleading in his tone.
For a moment the Earthman stared;
then he repeated the name slowly.
“Zola? Why, yes! Zola. I would
like to see her ; but I must keep looking.
Tell her that I’m looking.”
Again he tried to pass by the prince,
and again the prince laid a restraining
hand on his arm. Tears welled up in
his eyes. His friend — the greatest man
his people had ever known. There was
no question about it — his mind had gone.
At last he spoke again.
“All right, Tom. But first you must
drink this.” He held out a small bot¬
tle.
Tom slowly reached out and took it.
For a moment he seemed undecided,
then drained the contents.
A moment later the prince motioned
men forward. They eased the giant
frame to the ground. It was all they
could do to handle him. His weight was
many times theirs, and it was like lower¬
ing a heavy metal statue to the floor.
They carried him on an improvised
litter to the main building.
II.
MANY HOURS LATER Tom
awoke. He was lying in his own bed,
and for a moment thought he had been
having bad dreams. Then he noticed
two men standing in the doorway. He
leaped out of bed, angry at the intrusion
in his private apartment, but decided to
wait and see what the answer was.
A look toward Zola’s bed proved she
had not slept in it. Then Prince Cama
stood in the doorway ; called the minute
Tom showed signs of waking.
He seemed loath to enter and bear
the news to Tom ; but he slowly ap¬
proached his friend.
“I’m sorry, Tom, that I had to give
you the drug ; but you were out of your
head. I had to do something.
“I have had the city searched three
times. There's not the slightest sign.
Princess Zola seems to have disappeared
into thin air. There is no trace.”
For a moment Tom hung his head
in his hands. There was mute agony
in the look he turned toward Cama.
“Then it’s true! Zola has disap¬
peared? I hoped it was nothing but a
bad dream.”
Slowly, the prince nodded. Many
moments passed without a word. At
last Tom lifted his face.
“I appreciate everything you’ve done,
Cama. But I mustn't stop searching. I
know the city better than any of your
people, and can do as much alone as all
of you could.
"I’m rested and feel fine again. I in¬
tend to start in a few minutes. I will
not return until I find her. She must be
somewhere in the city, although she
doesn’t seem to be.
“There are trained men to care for
the machinery. They can carry on the
work for as long as I’m gone. If any
of your people see me in the passages,
they should pay no attentoin.
“I will keep up the search until she is
found ; but your people must go back
to work. If I’m gone a hundred periods
you shouldn’t worry. If it's longer than
that, you can do as you want.”
Prince Cama went over the details of
the search, so Tom would know exactly
what had been done.
54
ASTOUNDING STORIES
“I only searched for a short time be¬
fore it was necessary to return and direct
things from my apartment. The men
were getting mixed up. I had quite a
job to straighten them out.
“I had each leader draw a map of the
section he covered, and by the time they
went over the city once, I had an accu¬
rate check of what was done.
“Zola has not passed the guards at
the gates, so she must be within the
walls. I even went to look for your
flying house to he sure she hadn’t gone
that way, but it is where it belongs.
“After the city bad been covered once,
I drew rough maps from the sketches
they made, and started them out again.
It seemed impossible that she could have
been overlooked, but they hadn’t found
her.
“The second search had the same re¬
sult. I rested the men. It was then
that I found you in the passage and gave
you the drug. You have been asleep for
three periods.
“After I brought you to your apart¬
ment I had a complete map made of the
city. It was marked in sections. The
men went over it a third time. There is
no trace of the way she went or where
she is.”
When the prince finished. Tom got to
his feet. “I know you've done every¬
thing possible, Cania. I will search
alone from now on. There must be some
tilings we don't know about the city."
Silently, the two men shook hands.
THE CAR slid down the rails with
perfect ease. Every piece of equipment
in the building was in condition. A
moment later Tom stepped out, into the
room where he had repaired the huge
heating plant nearly three years before,
to make the building habitable.
Film covered everything he looked at
now. Specters of what might have
happened to Zola clouded his vision,
making everything vague and unreal.
He left the elevator and took the car
on the next stage of the journey to the
waterworks. He had been repairing the
last main when Zola started out to meet
him. She knew the way, had traveled it
several times with him. It seemed im¬
possible, but the fact that she had disap¬
peared somewhere en route was certain.
He examined the car carefully before
entering. There was no sign that it had
done anything but make regular trips
to the food station, where they had to
change cars.
There was nothing unusual at the exit,
either.
The passage at the junction was dimly
lighted. He used a flashlight to examine
every inch of the stone floor. Suddenly
he dropped to one knee. In the dust,
undisturbed along the edge, was a clear-
cut footprint. A woman’s foot! There
wasn't a man in Borid with as small a
foot as that. Suddenly Tom’s heart was
pounding.
He redoubled his search for more
signs of the way she had gone, but there
was nothing. For hours this search con¬
tinued without success. Finally he
stepped into the car that would take him
on the next stage of the journey.
A few moments later he stepped out
at the other end of the run. to examine
the exit. For another hour he searched
there, and found part of another small
print in the center of the passage. She
had been this way! Again he searched,
but the single half footmark was all he
found.
There was a walk of considerable dis¬
tance before he took another car. The
waterworks were outside the city
proper, in a special building. The only
means of entering or leaving was
through two cars that entered the city
in different sections. One was in such
bad condition it couldn’t be used, so this
was the only way.
Tom passed through a building that
had always before held his attention,
with only a glance. It was of unusual
design and its purpose had baffled him.
WORLD OF PURPLE LIGHT
55
He was on a level below the main floor,
but its decorations were as ornate as they
were in the other buildings several stor¬
ies above.
On the ground level the building was
mainly a huge hall, with many small
rooms around it. Down here it was
honeycombed with passages and ramps
to the upper sections. As he started to
leave he checked his steps, to return and
examine the passages carefully.
Zola had always been interested in the
designs on the walls and had stopped
several times on their way through to
look at the metal carvings.
It was certain she would stop here
when there was no one to hurry her.
She would have her first opportunity to
study it to her heart’s content.
The strangeness of the designs was
apparent as Tom returned to search.
Huge plates were fitted into niches in
the wall. The etchings on them far sur¬
passed any he had seen in the city. The
plaques were massive, as if set to with-
stand eons. It seemed like some type
of museum.
Scenes depicting people in every atti¬
tude of work and play appeared in differ¬
ent sections, but most of them were
travel scenes, picturing all sorts of
places. All lent a note of distance and
travel to the place. It was hard to put
a finger on the appearance of movement,
but it was there in an intangible form.
In several places the dust had been
brushed off the smaller figures to bring
them out in greater relief, and Tom knew
Zola had spent considerable time there,
as he had suspected. There were under¬
ground cars pictured in several places.
He discovered pictures of cars travel¬
ing overhead and along the ground; all
much longer than the cars he had seen,
and capable of holding many more pas¬
sengers.
FOLLOWING the course of Zola’s
wanderings by the signs of disturbed
dust, he reached the end of the first row
of etchings. There she had turned into
a side passage, where there was more
designs on the walls. The dust was
brushed off more carefully, as if her in¬
terest had intensified.
He followed carefully, examining each
design. He felt close to solving the mys¬
tery, yet hadn’t the slightest idea how
searching the pictures could help.
Reaching the end of the designs with
disturbed dust, he returned to the be¬
ginning again. This time going slower
than before. The key was in front of
him, if he could only find it.
The metal was surrounded with stone
similar to marble, which was unique on
a lower level. All the other buildings
were plain stone below the ground.
Slowly he neared the end of the sec¬
ond examination. Nothing appeared
that he hadn't seen the first time. At
the last panel he spent several minutes.
This was the end of the trail, and he
felt closer to Zola at that spot than any
other place he had been. He looked
the picture over until it was graven in
his mind. He would never forget the
slightest detail.
Suddenly he bent a little closer. Was
that a section that had moved ? Another
look confirmed the fact that one piece of
the design had been disturbed. A round
knob, a part of the picture, had a small
crack around it.
From every angle it had the same ap¬
pearance. There was a slight crack
where the dust had cracked. Then he
looked closer at the wall around the
panel. It had all moved! The whole
section had been out of place recently!
Tom couldn’t believe his eyes. He had
always thought them stationary — but
this one had moved !
For a moment he hesitated, then threw
his weight against the huge panel. It
was large enough for three people to
pass through without crowding. He had
grown so accustomed to having enor¬
mous strength; there wasn’t the slight¬
est question in his mind about his ability
56
ASTOUNDING STORIES
to force it open. Several fruitless at¬
tempts made him think differently. It
was stout. His strength was useless.
There had to be a way to open it that
didn’t require power. Then he noticed
the small section that first caught his
attention. He tried shoving on that, but
there was no responding movement.
III.
AFTER AN HOUR of effort he gave
up, and was on the point of returning
for tools when he thought to try one
of the other panels.
The next one showed no sign of dis¬
turbed dust. It had stood in the same
position for centuries. There was a
small protuberance on this which resem¬
bled the spot on the other. He tenta¬
tively pushed it.
To his amazement the panel swung
in — leaving a wide passage ahead. As
the door opened, a tunnel lighted up be¬
fore him. The lights worked with the
door. He walked down at a slant for
several hundred feet. At the end stood
a long car which completely filled the
available space in the stone work. He
was looking at a duplicate of the cars
pictured on the panels.
From the size of the car he judged it
was built for long travel. There were
comfortable seats, and even windows in
the sides. It reminded him of a railroad
terminal and coach in one of the big
cities on Earth.
There were spaces for baggage, and a
drinking tank at one end. Beyond the
passenger seats were small rooms. Sev¬
eral times he was tempted to touch one
of the buttons on the wall, hut thought
better of it. His interest in the car was
only to learn what he might about the
way Zola had gone.
He had thought himself master of all
the equipment in the city, but had dis¬
covered some that took his breath away.
He was a sadder, and wiser, man as he
.walked slowly up the incline.
When he reached the passage where
the door had barred his way to Zola’s
passage, his amazement knew no bounds.
The door stood open! He glanced
swiftly around to see if any one had
emerged, hut there was no sign of life.
He was alone. For the first time in
three years as a Boridian, a cold chill
crept up his spine.
He conquered the feeling and stepped
through the opening. He should re¬
member that everything in the city was
automatic. Why not the railroad ? The
passage ahead was lighted as the other
one had been, and there were unmistak¬
able footprints in the dust. At last he
was heading in the right direction.
The car at the end of the passage was
larger than the first one he had seen
and would hold many more passengers.
Inside, the dust was disturbed, but there
was no sign of footprints. The dust
showed signs of being whirled around,
as though the car had recently been
under motion. Lights glowed in long
rows set in the ceiling.
Tom felt of his belt, to make sure
the radite gun was still there. When he
took it from the stand there had seemed
no sense in carrying the extra weight.
Now it gave him a comforting feeling
to know he had it.
Before entering the car he returned
through the passage and shut the door
leading to the other car, lest some med¬
dler find it.
Returning again he passed through
the huge car from one end to the other.
There was no sign of driving mechanism
within. It was handled from some out¬
side source. Perhaps it automatically
traveled between two terminals.
When he closed the door, he heard
the door to the passage bang shut. They
worked together by some hidden switch.
The lights went out in the passage, and
when those in the car began to dim he
searched frantically for some control.
Just inside the door he found a but¬
ton. On pressing it the car began to
WORLD OF PURPLE LIGHT
57
58
ASTOUNDING STORIES
move. The movement was so unex¬
pected he was thrown off balance and
landed in one of the seats, as the lights
came on bright again.
The car traveled slowly for a ways,
then almost stopped as it turned
slightly. Again it went ahead for a short
distance, and again turned to the side.
The only light outside was a faint
gleam that spread from the windows in
the car. Tom pressed his face to the
clear pane to see what was going on.
Then he thought of the flashlight beside
him, and threw the beam across the
tracks.
To his amazement there were only
single tracks for the huge car to travel
on, and a fear that it might tip to the
side gripped him.
The flashlight gave very little light,
but tracks were visible as far as the beam
carried. Switches cut from one to an¬
other. Several times the car changed
rails.
Dust had gathered on the rails until
there was a heavy coating. Peering out
of the clear pane in the front of the car,
the track he was on showed signs of re¬
cent usage. The others had been un¬
disturbed for ages.
SLOWLY the car threaded its way
from one track to another, as a car
would switch from track to track on
Earth. It seemed as if an unseen hand
was guiding it.
After a few moments it came to tracks
at a right angle. Several hundred cars
stood in rows along them, reaching as
far as the dim flashlight could carry.
In two places dust was disturbed where
cars had been standing, and an explana¬
tion of the door in the passage, opening
after considerable time had passed,
slowly seeped into Tom’s mind.
One car had arrived after Zola pushed
on the section of panel by accident, and
the second had come into the station
when the Earthman pushed it a second
time. Tom hoped the routing of the two
cars hadn’t been changed while he and
Zola were examining the carvings.
There was no way to tell what might
change their destination.
Judging by the size of the under¬
ground terminal, Borid was evidently the
main city of the railway, and all the cars
were stored there. It seemed strange
that he had seen no tracks beyond the
city during his excursions into the forest.
The city had seemed isolated from the
rest of the planet.
For a moment a feeling of unrest
gripped him. The car was slowly leav¬
ing the huge city, to head for an un¬
known destination — a part of the strange
world that even the Boridians didn’t
know existed.
The car picked up speed after pass¬
ing the stored cars, until it was tearing
along faster than anything in Borid,
faster than he ever had traveled before.
Where he was heading was a question,
but he was already far beyond the city
wall.
For a long time the car went in dark¬
ness, the walls of the passage flashing by
the windows.
Suddenly the car was out in the pale
glow of purple. He was out of the
ground and traveling along the surface.
He stared out. The car was climbing
steadily. Several hundred feet above the
ground it leveled out, riding the single
rail. The vegetation was well below the
track.
More open country than he had seen
since he had been in Borid was visible.
Rolling country flashed by at several
miles a minute. He soon became ac¬
customed to the motion of the car. The
smooth, gliding action was without vi¬
bration.
He wondered at the reason for build¬
ing the rail so far above the ground.
Huge metal and stone pillars were vis¬
ible when he peered out the front of
the car. Then he realized they planned
the rail to stand for centuries, and put
WORLD OF PURPLE LIGHT
59
it high enough so the growth of vegeta¬
tion couldn’t reach it to block the track.
Planning, which looked forward to
centuries without limit, was still a mar¬
vel to Tom. The race which had
planned so carefully for the future was
gone ; but their work stood behind them
like monuments. The equipment was
in fair condition though ages had passed
since it was used !
The country was visible for miles. It
might be taken for virgin timber coun¬
try on the Earth if it weren't for the pe¬
culiar purple light. Trees, resembling
the great hardwoods he had been accus¬
tomed to as a boy, went flashing by.
In the distance appeared a huge struc¬
ture, which certainly was another
walled city. It didn’t seem as large as
Borid, but the distance made it hard to
tell the size. The track didn’t approach
it, and it was for only a few moments
that he could catch sight of it at all.
A LITTLE LATER a narrow ribbon
appeared far ahead, and drew toward
the railway at an angle. When it came
closer he recognized it as a highway. As
it flashed beneath, it also looked to be
in fair condition. It did not show signs
of having been used for a long time.
Later mountains were visible in the
distance, and the track headed toward
them. A large range, they stood up
against the purple sky for over a mile.
When they drew closer Tom was not
surprised to find the car diving under¬
ground.
He seemed to be going downgrade for
a time, and began to wonder. An hour
had passed without sign of light. The
mountains must be bigger than they
looked, to require so much time passing'
through.
Then the car slowed down and trav¬
eled at a slower speed. Lights appeared
outside. He had reached another sta¬
tion, with the lighted passages the same
as the one in Borid.
When there was no sign of life he
stepped toward the door. The car had
been sliding slowly to position. Now it
stopped. The door swung open as if
an unseen hand had moved it, and the
empty passage stretched ahead.
Tom Corbin, Earthman, had been a
Boridian for three years, and the city
had become home to him. Now, as he
faced the strange passage, he hesitated.
He stood an unknown distance from
Borid ; possibly a few hundred miles and
perhaps a thousand, with no hint of what
was ahead.
He might meet hostile men around the
first turn, and it might be a deserted city.
He had reached the station on a railroad
that hadn’t been used for centuries, and
felt alone in the universe.
The radite gun hung in one hand as
he went forward slowly. Everything
was covered with dust, the way it had
been in the terminal in Borid. But what
might lie beyond the first door? Zola
was somewhere ahead. There were un¬
mistakable prints to follow now.
SUDDENLY a man landed on his
back, followed by others. Tom grabbed
the first man and was going to throw
him, when he thought better. Their
weight was not enough to carry him to
the floor, but he sank down as if over¬
powered. It would be better to let them
think he had no more than the average
strength.
They rolled him over on his back, and
for the first time he could see who had
attacked him. There were a dozen fig¬
ures, so covered with hair it was hard
to recognize them as men, holding him
down.
They didn’t know enough to take the
radite gun from him, but let him slip
it back in his belt. One of them re¬
moved it and looked it over carefully,
then replaced it. They seemed nearer
apes than men, keeping up a steady un¬
intelligible jabber.
When his hands were securely tied,
they tried to lift him to his feet, and Tom
60
ASTOUNDING STORIES
couldn’t help laughing. After two or
three efforts to raise him, they stood
back and jabbered among themselves for
a moment. Then, approaching carefully,
they touched him, and showed their
amazement.
One of them tried punching him and
nearly broke his hand. Tom laughed
aloud this time, and slowly wiggled
around and got to his feet. The men
had more respect for him now. They
kept feeling of his flesh, then peering
into his face.
The passage they led him through
appeared to be in constant use. All the
lights were in perfect condition, and the
car they entered slid along the track
with ease. This city was certainly differ¬
ent from Borid. But the men didn’t
show intelligence enough to care for the
machines and keep them in repair.
There must be more intelligent beings.
The distance the cars traveled showed
that the city was smaller than Borid.
They changed several times in the dis¬
tance one car would take them in the
big city.
The cord binding his hands together
was no more than a piece of string to
his strength, and at any moment he
could part it. But the hairy men seemed
satisfied that he couldn't escape, and
watched him like a group of children.
They passed more of the hairy men,
all of them laboring hard. They ap¬
peared to be servants in the city, but
so far there was no sign of any masters.
He went forward without resistance.
Zola had come this way and was proba¬
bly held prisoner by the same men.
If anything had happened to her —
they would regret it many times before
they were through with him! But they
seemed gentle ; going about their work
efficiently. They reminded him of a
bunch of cattle with human forms, and
low, human intelligence.
The interest they displayed in him was
similar to that of domestic animals on
Earth. They smelled of him, then
walked around in circles, looking hird
over carefully.
Several times two or three of them
tried to lift him, but he was too much
for them to handle. He was tempted
to break his bonds and show them what
his strength was, but held himself in
check. The time would come, and the
less respect they had for him the easier
it would be to break loose.
He tried to talk to them in the lan¬
guage of Borid, but they didn’t under¬
stand. They gestured and tried to con¬
verse in their language of whistles and
grunts, but it was useless.
When one of the cars made an unex¬
pected turn on the track, Tom was
thrown against the side quite hard.
When he caught his balance again there
was a dent in the metal where he had
struck. The hairy men whistled and
grunted as they examined it, then re¬
turned to feel of his arms and shoul¬
ders.
Every piece of mechanical equipment
they had used so far might have been in
Borid. If the men with him hadn’t
been so strange Tom would have thought
himself back in the home city. Every¬
thing was on a smaller scale, but aside
from that it was a duplication of familiar
equipment.
When they left the cars, and walked
along a hall on an upper level, Tom
knew they must be near their destina¬
tion. Everything was different from his
first sight of Borid. The lights were all
shining brightly. Some bulbs shone
brighter than others, proving they had
been replaced recently, although they all
lasted for long periods.
They met hairy men everywhere, and
on the upper levels there were women
of the same race. They showed the
same mentality as the men.
A FEW MOMENTS LATER he
stood at the entrance of a huge room.
Compared to the size of the other rooms
they had passed, it was of some im-
WORLD OF PURPLE LIGHT
61
portance. They were in some great
gathering hall.
Seats filled most of the space, with
one wide aisle up the center. At the far
end was a large platform, with about
fifty seats on it.
The hairy men led him to a seat in
the front row, directly facing the plat¬
form. They filed in and sat down, as
if they had nothing to do but wait.
There was no sign of any one else com¬
ing, and the emptiness gave Tom an
eerie feeling.
Time passed without a sound. The
hairy men didn’t speak or move, but sat
like statues waiting — waiting. They
seemed to have reverence for the room,
or for the empty seats before them.
The longer they sat the more nervous
Tom got, until it was all he could do to
sit quiet. When he moved slightly on
the hard bench, they looked at him with
as near reproach as they could show.
But still they didn’t speak.
After what seemed an eternity, a gong
rang. The sound traveled from wall to
wall without harshness. Still the men
sat without moving. Tom turned to
look at the ceiling, but couldn’t locate
the spot whence the sound came.
Soon other hairy men began entering
the room, to find seats in the huge cham¬
ber. They kept coming in larger groups
until the hall was packed. Every seat
was filled and many had to stand along
the walls in back.
When the gong rang again, the men
dropped to their knees, to disappear
behind the backs of the seats in front of
them. They seemed to do it happily.
There was no sign that they were forced
to bow down, although it might have
been taught them for generations.
Tom kept his seat, much to the dismay
of his guards. They tried to motion him
down beside them. They didn’t use
force, but tried their best to make hint
kneel by motioning.
Suddenly he heard a noise at the back
of the platform, and glanced up to see
men filing through a doorway at the rear.
They were normal men ! Men that
could have been dropped in the city of
Borid and taken for natives. It was a
relief to know he wasn't in a city of the
hairy men. There were men here that
he could consider of the human race.
Both men and women comprised the
group that was filling the seats on the
platform. Tom’s heart sank. They
wore headdresses of every color, deco¬
rated with shining pieces of metal ; but
aside from that they were naked.
A feeling that he had fallen among
savages gripped him. Even in Borid the
people had worn clothes in public when
he arrived there. But these people were
without any kind of covering save their
gaudy headdress.
What had they done with Zola?
There was no telling what they might
do. They were beautiful people. Their
bodies were as well-formed as the Borid-
ians, and their features were perfect.
There was intelligence in their faces
as well ; but their dress stunned him.
The Boridians wore nothing in pri¬
vate, due to lack of clothing. They had
even entertained company without
clothes in the privacy of their apart¬
ments, but these people appeared with¬
out clothes in a public gathering hall !
They acted as if their nakedness were
an ordinary thing. Tom hadn't thought
about the appearance of the hairy men
without clothes, because of their com¬
plete covering of dark hair. But it was
different with people in a form similar
to his own.
As they walked in and took their
seats, they watched Tom with interest.
There was no sign of hostility, and his
heart stopped beating quite so hard.
Perhaps Zola was in good hands after
all.
When every chair was filled, the gong
rang again. Slowly the hairy men got
to their feet and sat down on the
benches. They had been worshiping the
men that now filled the platform.
62
ASTOUNDING STORIES
After a moment one of the men spoke.
Tom’s guards rose and led him up the
aisle. When they reached a spot directly
in front of the man, he addressed himself
to Tom, but in an unintelligible tongue.
After listening respectfully to all the
man had to say, Tom tried the language
of Borid, but they didn’t understand
him, either. They talked amongst them¬
selves for several minutes ; then the
guards led him from the room.
This time he was taken only a short
distance and ushered into a room on
the same level. Two of the hairy men
went with him, and showed him through
a fair-sized apartment.
They remained as servants and
guards. When he made motions to show
that he was hungry they hooted and
called to each other for several min¬
utes. One of them went out and an¬
other came to take his place. A short
time later the first man returned with
a mixture of vegetables and meat, similar
to the food used in Borid. They evi¬
dently had domestic animals in this city,
while Borid had known meat only on
rare occasions until Tom came. He had
taught Borid to capture wild beasts and
raise them.
The windows of the apartment over¬
looked one of the huge gardens, and
Tom was surprised to find they didn’t
grow food in it, but had enormous flower
beds instead. They must have farm
land adjoining the city, for growing
vegetables.
Several times, as the hours passed, he
tried to get in touch with some one who
could tell him about Zola. A telephone
on the wall responded when he pressed
the key, and he tried to get one of the
smooth-skinned men to come to the
apartment. At times there was nothing
but the hooting and howling of hairy
men, at others he heard human voices.
But nothing brought sight of them.
At last, in desperation, he tried to
find out what he could from the half¬
human guards. At first they only
whined as he tried to make motions that
would tell them about Zola. They
seemed to think him as ignorant as he
knew they were.
After a long system of motions they
realized what he was saying. Then they
repeated the motions after him : rubbing
their faces to show there was no hair,
then outlining Zola’s slim figure. One
of them seemed more intelligent than
the other, and made motions to indicate
that they had seen her.
This was some slight consolation, but
it gave Tom no inkling of what had hap¬
pened to her.
IV.
HOURS PASSED with no word
from outside, and the hairy men had
hard work to keep away. One of them
lay down to sleep, while the other stood
guard. For hours their prisoner had
been growing more restless, until he had
taken to pacing the floor.
They watched this for a while, trying
to comprehend some reason for it. One
of them even came over and tried to
force Tom’s mouth open to look at his
teeth. Such action must represent pain
to their simple minds. They finally de¬
cided it was all right, and settled down
for the long watch. They didn’t have
many nerves, and were sati"fied to spend
any amount of time watching this
strange man. They would squat down
and sit for a long time without even
turning their eyes.
After one guard had been asleep for
a while, Tom happened to think of some¬
thing, and walked slowly through the
apartment. They had removed his
bonds as soon as he was brought in.
There was nothing to hamper him now.
As he went slowly from one room to
another, watching the floor intently, the
hairy man followed a few feet behind,
as a good dog would follow on Earth.
Near the back room he hesitated, then
bent down to examine the floor. The
hairy man came closer to see what he
WORLD OF PURPLE LIGHT
63
was looking at. Toni turned and mo¬
tioned, as if to raise a section of the
floor, but the creature didn't understand.
It was plain that he didn’t know a stone
in the floor could be lifted.
Hope mounted in Tom’s breast. Per¬
haps these people didn’t know that se¬
cret passages tunneled their city. At
least he suspected it.
The flagstone in the floor was placed
in the same position, and set in the same
way, as the entrance stones in Borid,
and he well remembered the passages
there. They had saved his life before he
was in the city very long.
Suddenly he turned and grabbed the
hairy man by the throat. He was much
stronger than Tom had expected — twice
as strong as any Boridian. It was no
wonder they weren’t afraid that Tom
would escape. Any native would be
helpless in the creature’s grip.
The man fought hard, but against
Tom Corbin’s Earth muscles he was
powerless. Slowly, he began to sag.
Tom eased his grip. He didn’t want to
injure the harmless creature. As his
hands relaxed, he could see wonder and
admiration in the huge brown eyes.
There was no hatred, but respect for
this man who could best him.
He offered no more resistance, and
when Tom took him by the arm and led
him over to the stone in the floor, he
didn’t attempt to make an outcry. It
was strange, but the creature seemed to
have attached himself to the Earthman.
When he tried to lift the stone, the
creature stepped forward and offered to
help. This was more than Tom ex¬
pected. He was afraid the moment he
let the creature alone he would start
for help. For a moment he stopped
with amazement at the unexpected ac¬
tion, then he worked his fingers into a
crack, so filled with the dust of ages
that it wouldn’t have been detected
without close scrutiny. The guard
worked his long, tapering fingers into
the opening. A moment later he raised
the stone enough for Tom to get hold
and lift it out of place.
The creature fairly purred when he
saw the opening, and dropped to his
hands and knees to peer into the dark¬
ness beneath. When Tom motioned for
him to drop into the opening, he hesi¬
tated a moment, then dropped out of
sight.
A soft thud, where his big feet touched
the level below, told that he was all right.
Then Tom dropped over the edge lrm-
self, to hang by one hand and pull the
stone back into position.
His half-human friend was afraul in
the pitch blackness. As they < dged
along the passage, he kept close to his
new master. Suddenly Tom’s hand
found the switch he was seeking, and
the section near them sprang into light.
Everything was identical with the
passages in Borid, and Tom had high
hopes that they would lead to every part
of the city. His companion was follow¬
ing dose to his heels. Tom decided to
name him before they went any farther.
Stopping in the pale glow from a dust-
covered light, he pointed to the hairy
man and said “Bill.” Then, pointing to
himself, said “Tom.” He knew it would
be too much to try and teach the crea¬
ture his last name, but he might learn
to say Tom. For several minutes he
kept it up. Slowly, a dawning light ap¬
peared in the soft eyes. Then the crea¬
ture pointed to himself and said “Bill,”
then to Tom and repeated his name. He
had learned his first lesson.
Dust was undisturbed in the passages,
and there was no fear that they could
become lost in the maze of cross sections
with their tracks behind them blazing
the trail. But which way to go first in
the search for Zola was hard to decide.
He turned to the left at a cross section,
and stopped beneath the first overhead
opening.
Before trying to open it, he went
through all the motions that he had used
64
ASTOUNDING STORIES
earlier to describe Zola. Bill under¬
stood without the slightest trouble.
When he understood thoroughly, he
pointed the other way and tried to have
Tom follow. At first Tom hesitated,
but the creature might know more about
the direction they should go than he
thought. Later he found that the hairy
men had an unerring sense of direction,
and could go to any spot they wanted to
reach in light or darkness.
AFTER going for quite a distance
Bill turned to the right, and, at the end
of a short side passage, stopped beneath
a trap in the floor above.
Tom listened intently for several min¬
utes. Only a vague hum of voices came
from above. There were at least two
people, and possibly many more in the
room. Then he jumped and caught the
ledge with his finger tips.
From this spot he could hear a little
plainer. The voices proved to come
from a man and a woman. He was
about to drop to the floor again, when a
tone of voice he had often heard, rang
out. It seemed in anger. The sound
of Zola’s voice sent the trap swinging
back out of place and the Earthman into
the room overhead without a moment’s
hesitation.
Slowly, the creature behind Tom fol¬
lowed, to stand and watch as the Earth-
man faced the pair before him. A man
and a woman stood there. The man a
stranger — one of the race that had occu¬
pied the platform earlier. But the
woman was his wife. The man was
holding her in his arms when they were
interrupted, and tears were running
down Zola’s face.
When Tom appeared so unexpectedly
the man let go of Zola and stepped back.
Surprise sealed his lips for a moment.
Before he could recover and call for help,
Tom’s arm was around his neck. The
man’s life would have ended then, but
Zola put her hand on Tom’s arm and
stopped the pressure.
Tom watched the frantic signals his
captive was making to Bill, and turned
to see the creature standing with a sullen
expression on his face, but not offering
to obey and help the prisoner.
Zola’s pleading stopped Tom from
killing the man, but he held him in an
iron grip while Zola tried to explain.
“Don’t kill him, Tom! He doesn’t
know what he was trying to do. The
men in the city have been half crazy ever
since they captured me, and every one
has tried to make me marry him.
“They seem so pleased to find a
woman that they have lost their heads.
A woman is the greatest prize they could
possibly have, but they haven't treated
me rough.
“But, Tom, how did you get here? I
thought I was lost forever and would
never see you again.”
Tom couldn't help smiling, as Zola
tried to kiss him and pull his hands free
at the same time. The man in his grip
stared at them in amazement. He was
too much upset to call for help. Tom
released him.
As soon as Tom could turn his mind
to the problem facing them he looked
into the next room. There was no one
in sight. He stepped through the door¬
way. When he reached the next open¬
ing, voices could be heard faintly in
the distance.
Returning to Zola’s room, he motioned
for the others to go into the opening in
the floor. The white man hesitated, but
Bill helped Zola down and then disap¬
peared himself. Tom swung the man
under one arm and, calling to be sure
Zola and Bill weren’t beneath, dropped
to the floor below.
As they dropped through the opening,
the man under his arm screamed in ter¬
ror. Tom thought, too late, to hold his
hand over his mouth. There was no
question but what it could be heard for
a long distance, and he hurried to get
the trap in place before any one discov¬
ered what the disturbance was.
WORLD OF PURPLE LIGHT
65
Although their weight was
not enough to carry him to
the floor, he sank down as
if overpowered. It would
be best to let them think he
had no more than average
strength.
AN HOUR LATER they were still
following the passage. Bill had taken
the lead and was heading for some spot
well away from the center of the city.
At times he would hesitate at cross tun¬
nels, then would go on. Tom thought
Bill knew their path, but in reality he
was using his sense of direction.
Bill had taken such a liking for Tom
that he wouldn’t go more than a few
feet away from him. Once he showed
signs of jealousy toward Zola, but Tom
AST— 5
put a stop to that immediately. Slowly,
then, he became accustomed to her com¬
pany, and seemed to like her as well as
he did Tom.
Several times the man tried to give
Bill an order; but the creature didn’t
pay the slightest attention. Either he
was a very good actor, or his loyalty had
been transferred to the strangers from
Borid.
After winding and twisting along dark
passages for miles, they stopped before
66
ASTOUNDING STORIES
a door. Bill sniffed around the edges
before trying to open it. Then he
turned to Tom and motioned, as if to
pull it toward him.
Tom got a grip on the crack with his
fingers and pulled. The door was
stronger than it looked, and taxed even
his Earth strength. But when he
exerted every ounce of muscle, the door
moved slightly. Bill joined him. A
moment later the door swung open with
the sound of rending metal.
Tom had forced a bolt that could have
withstood a dozen natives. The white
stranger stood back in awe at the dis¬
play of strength, then timidly felt the
muscle in Tom’s arms. His admiration
was such that he even tried to show
friendliness toward the man who held
him captive.
There had been no sign of pursuit,
although the prisoner had glanced back
hopefully several times. Evidently the
pursuers didn’t yet know of the trap in
the floor.
When the door swung back, the little
party gazed at a scene of striking beauty.
Walls lined with decorative metal, and
the first gold Tom had seen on the
strange planet, glinted before them.
The floor was of polished stone. It
showed sign of hard usage, although it
was covered with dust now.
As they started to enter, the white
man shrieked and tried to back out.
Tom finally took him by one arm and
forced him inside. As they crossed the
threshold he went limp and had to be
carried. Even Bill seemed hesitant at
entering the place after bringing the
strangers to it. Zola was spellbound
by the greatest display of grandeur she
had ever seen.
Bill carried the white man. It was a
long time before he recovered from the
shock enough to walk alone. A few
steps beyond the passage a door opened
to the left, and they looked into a room
two hundred feet long by fifty wide.
The walls and ceiling were decorated
with expensive metals, as the passage
had been.
Tom and Zola examined the drawings
carefully. After studying a series, Zola
turned to him.
“Tom, this is the history of the race of
gods ! Here” — she pointed to one panel
— “they are building the great citfes.
There they are carrying the rock for
construction. It goes on for many years.
Here they are living with every com¬
fort, and there, at last, they are head¬
ing toward some catastrophe. See, this
one shows them dying!
“There’s something peculiar about this
room. The natives here are afraid of
it. Did you notice how it affected the
man with us?”
BILL led them up ramp after ramp,
past rooms of the same type on every
level. It was a baffling building, with
the wealth of an empire set in the walls.
On the eleventh level the hairy guide
led them to a room with elaborate deco¬
ration, but no sign of the drawings pic¬
turing the race. At the far end fresh
food waited on a long table, and beyond
an apartment opened, with every con¬
venience for living in comfort and lux¬
ury.
Bill led the little group to the table
and pointed proudly to the food, then
gestured to the apartment. Although
the rooms showed no sign of occupants,
everything seemed to be in perfect order.
The prisoner was able to walk alone
by this time, and though frightened, tried
not to show it. He kept glancing at
Tom queerly, as if trying to fathom a
mystery. It bothered the Earthman for
a while, but he soon forgot it.
After glancing through the apartment,
they returned to the food. It was time
they had something to eat. The prisoner
refused to sit at the table, and Bill
squatted behind, while Tom and Zola
ate delicacies which hadn’t been waiting
many hours.
The prisoner showed growing amaze-
WORLD OF PURPLE LIGHT
67
ment as they ate, and finally dropped to
his knees. This act was so startling
Tom nearly choked. But Bill seemed
perfectly satisfied, and whistled his ap¬
proval.
Tom took the man by the shoulders
and raised him to his feet. There was
reverence in the captive’s eyes. Tom
knew that he was being worshiped as a
great being.
When he again told the man to sit and
eat, the fellow obeyed. During the meal
his eyes never left Tom’s face. It
seemed as if the Earthman had made
him the happiest man in the city.
When Tom rose from the table, the
man jumped to move his chair, tried to
give every small service possible.
In the apartment, they found rooms
with couches ready for sleep. Tom
assigned one to the captive, chose the
largest for himself and Zola.
The prisoner hesitated about leaving
them, but when they entered their own
room he turned to the room assigned
him. Bill wouldn’t be cast aside. He
followed them. Once inside, knowing
that they were ready to rest, he lay
down across the doorway. He reminded
Tom of a pet dog, on Earth.
It was hard to estimate how long Tom
had been without sleep, but he was so
tired that Zola waited until after he had
had some rest before she tried to talk.
Once the softness of the couch was be¬
neath him, his eyes wouldn’t stay open.
Hours later he awoke. A faint hum
of voices from the chamber beyond the
apartment brought him to his feet. Bill
still lay inside the door, but his eyes were
open, and he was listening intently to
the conversation in the distance.
It seemed strange that there had been
no attack by the huge group outside.
They must know that the strangers
would be easy to capture. It was odd
that Bill showed no sign of uneasiness.
Tom took his time dressing, but Zola
was dressed in a moment in her simple
Boridian garment. Then he examined
the radite gun, to be sure it was ready
for instant use.
As they started, hand in hand, toward
the sound of voices, Bill began to whis¬
tle in a shrill key that carried well be¬
yond their quarters. The buzz of con¬
versation died.
They walked carefully, listening, but
there was no farther sound to indicate
that any one else was in the building.
Tom could feel the hair creep on the
back of his neck, and took a tighter grip
on his gun. Perhaps they were heading
for a trap. But Zola went on without
fear, her giant husband protection
against a thousand ordinary men.
Fresh food stood on the table of the
big room, this time in huge quantities
and of every variety. It was a table fit
for a king. Beyond the table what ap¬
peared at first to be gaudy-colored heaps
of cloth, moved slightly. They were
human beings bowed down so low, and
in such perfect order, they appeared to
be stacks of clothing.
The rest of the human population had
come to pay homage ! For some reason
Tom had been accepted as a great being,
and they were gathered to worship him.
There could be no question about their
intentions. They were dressed for a gala
occasion, in shining robes of many
colors.
TOM was at a loss. He knew they
expected him to speak, in some way, but
the situation was beyond him. Zola
came to the rescue. She had been
among them long enough to understand
a few words. Several times she had
been with them in the chamber where
the hairy men bowed down, and she re¬
membered what they said.
“Tom! Tom, say ‘Rolit.’ It’s their
word ‘to rise’ !”
For a moment he waited ; but when he
spoke, his voice carried clearly.. The
worshipers got slowly to their feet.
68
ASTOUNDING STORIES
The recent prisoner stood slightly
ahead of the crowd. Tom motioned him
forward, as he and Zola sat down at the
table. The man smiled as he ap¬
proached.
When Tom motioned for him to sit
down and eat, the man was embarrassed,
but finally slid into one of the chairs
shaking like a leaf. After they had eaten
a few mouthfuls, Tom motioned for his
new friend to call the others. One name
after another was called, and the people
came forward slowly to take seats as¬
signed to them.
The late captive placed some far from
Tom and others near. He carefully
pointed out the position each was to
occupy, as if it represented the station
in life that man would hold from now on.
The meal got slowly underway. Con¬
versation sprang up first in one spot and
then another, until there was a low hum
in the room.
It was the strangest meal that Tom
or Zola had ever eaten. They couldn’t
understand what had been going on, or
why Tom was held in such high esteem.
Something had happened that set him
as far above the humans as they were
above the hairy men.
Despite a thin veneer of Boridian cul¬
ture he was still a native of the Earth,
and these customs and beliefs were new
and strange. Three years before he had
been drawn over to the city of Borid,
when he accidentally tapped a strange
radio wave in his laboratory. A giant
rotor had deposited him beneath its
powerful arms, and it was a miracle that
he escaped from the tremendous power.
Nor had he the slightest inkling of
where he had landed.
The new world had been very strange,
but his enormous strength and his
knowledge of things electrical had
served to place him on a higher scale
than the natives. His arrival in the
power room of the city had been a great
factor in their belief that he was one
of a lost race of gods.
For untold centuries the Boridians had
held the belief that some day a god
would return the way the last of the race
had disappeared. Tom Corbin had been
the first man to come through a sacred
door. In all its history, handed down
from one generation to another, Borid
had no record of any one else passing
through, safely.
Tom’s mind went back over the events
since he had been in tbe strange city,
but there was no key to his present posi¬
tion among these people. They had
taken him prisoner, and he had escaped.
Now they were worshiping him; seem¬
ingly without reason.
Something he'd done had caused the
reaction. Now he was in a more embar¬
rassing position than ever. Certain
things would be expected of him, and
there was no way to know what they
might be.
The inhabitants of this city were much
farther advanced scientifically than the
Boridians, but the same superstitions
held them. There was no question but
what the people sitting at the long table
feared him. Why ?
When the meal was over Tom got to
his feet. The assembled crowd jumped
up. With a motion he dismissed them —
all but his captive, who must have gath¬
ered the people together for this occa¬
sion.
Tom had to plan carefully. A wrong
step might be disastrous. If he should
break the spell that held these people,
and they should find out that they
weren’t worshiping a god, calamity
would follow.
V.
THE MAN who remained with him
was happy. Tom’s favor in letting him
stay was an honor ; it showed in his face.
Within a few minutes Tom was busy,
pointing out objects and naming them
in the Boridian language. In return the
man named them in his native tongue.
WORLD OF PURPLE LIGHT
There was similarity between the two
languages, as if they had sprung from
the same source, and Tom found it easier
to master the strange tongue than he
had expected. The tutor was not
stupid, and soon understood what Tom
wanted. Then it was easy to learn.
The man’s name was Lotan, and when
Tom called him by name he was as
pleased as a child with a new toy. He
soon learned to call Tom by name, but
always added a title. But it was several
days before Tom understood what Lotan
meant when he said “Tom, Wootor.”
After the first meal, when they all
gathered, the people didn’t bother them
again. Lotan stayed in the apartment,
and they studied the language.
The simple words that Bill could un¬
derstand were soon mastered. After
that Zola directed the work of the hairy
men who took care of the apartment.
Three weeks — Earth time — passed be¬
fore Tom set foot outside the building.
He was becoming nervous at the inac¬
tion, and cramming the strange language
until he could carry on a simple con¬
versation.
When he told Lotan he wanted to see
the city, the man was so pleased he
strutted. A short time later a group
of five men appeared, to lay swords at
his feet and touch their foreheads to the
floor. He had been provided with a
loyal guard.
Instead of a sight-seeing tour, Tom
found that he was on display for the
population. Everywhere they went
white and hairy men lined the way.
There seemed to be many times the num¬
ber of hairy men that there were whites,
and in several places only the lower race
was represented.
Finally Tom turned to Lotan, who
walked a few steps behind, and ques¬
tioned him about the population.
“Yes. There are many times the
number of hairy men Tom, Wooter.
There are few of my people left. But
there are many thousands of the hairy
men in the city.”
From the roof of the building of the
dead most of the city was visible. The
building proved to be much higher, and
cover more ground than any other he
saw. It was one of the most imposing
structures in the city ; the exterior deco¬
ration was more ornate.
Footbridges joined one roof top with
another. The streets were much nar¬
rower than in Borid. They crossed sev¬
eral buildings before it was necessary to
descend to take a car.
Everything was similar in Borid except
in size, and Tom caught himself thinking
he was back home. But unusual objects
would jerk his mind back to the present.
Zola had not joined him on the tour.
She vcas content to spend hour after
hour studying the carvings in the build¬
ing they had begun to call home.
She had learned more about the pres¬
ent race of inhabitants, and understood
them better, than Tom did. She had
been able to tell him many things about
their early history, that helped him to
understand their customs.
He was in a very difficult position. He
dared not ask too many questions; they
took it for granted that he understood
everything about the civilization on the
planet, as if he had lived at the time of
its greatest glory.
When Lotan came to him and asked if
he couldn’t do something about the lack
of women in his race, it took Tom un¬
awares. But he replied that he had been
considering the question for several days
and would find a solution before long.
It seemed that he had to put off re¬
plying day after day, and he feared that
sooner or later he would be caught with¬
out an answer.
BY ACCIDENT, he found hn ex¬
planation to many things that had been
bothering him. Lotan had been his con-
70
ASTOUNDING STORIES
stant companion since he had been in the
city, and answered every question he
asked. But the question about the hairy
men, disturbed Lotan more than any¬
thing else.
When the Earthman asked for an ex¬
planation of the numbers of hairy men,
and what their origin was, Lotan looked
sick. He tried to avoid answering, as
if the subject were something to be
ashamed of. Finally he asked Tom to
follow, and led the way to a small room
isolated from the apartment, in a section
of the building they had not yet explored.
Lotan was afraid to have Zola or any of
the hairy men overhear the conversa¬
tion.
“Tom, Wootor,” he began hesitantly,
in an undertone, “my people fear your
wrath, and accept whatever the punish¬
ment may be. They broke one of the
laws your people made for us.”
Tom was taken back. Lotan had said
“Your people,’’ as if Tom came from a
familiar race.
“Go back to the height of your civ¬
ilization, Lotan,” he said softly, “and
tell me everything. Perhaps if I hear
it all, from the beginning of time, I will
not be so hard on you.”
“What you ask is wise, Tom. Wootor.
You are more understanding than your
race is reputed to be. If I tell you
everything, as I learned it from our his¬
tory, perhaps you may understand the
acts of our ancestors.
“When my people were still of the
forests, living on the game they could
kill, your people were great. Your an¬
cestors lived in great luxury, while my
people fought to survive the dangers of
the wilds.
“When men with metal suits first
came to my people, the tribesmen were
afraid. But they learned that the strong
men who moved with the speed of a hun¬
dred men, didn’t mean harm.
“It was hard at first, but my people
learned to obey every order they were
given. When they were presented with
‘killrods’ and were told to hunt, they
killed many animals. These your people
took, except for enough to feed my peo¬
ple. This was hard to understand, for
we now had more food than ever before.
“Our evolutionary development was
far in advance of the other racial groups
within the planet, and your strong race
had picked us for some unexplained pur¬
pose. We grew strong mentally, physi¬
cally, and numerically, until living space
became a problem. It was then your
metal men taught us to build of stone.
“My people were taugbt to grow food
in great quantities — ten times what we
could consume. Your people needed a
great deal of food. My ancestors had to
work much of the time.
“Many generations lived and died,
toiling for the metal men. In return
these strong men built us many houses.
One of your people could lift a stone
that many of mine could not disturb.
They moved so fast that my ancestors
could hardly see them, and at times
didn’t know they were working until a
new house was half finished.
“Then came the word that my people
must spend much time learning. They
were taught to read from pictures. Each
work period one third were sent to study
the pictures on the walls of a stone build¬
ing, and learn to translate their story.
“THREE GENERATIONS passed
before teachers were ready to instruct
our own people. The ability to read
word pictures became universal during
the succeeding generation.
“Small machines were then intro¬
duced. Food was grown in greater
quantities, and fewer had to work in the
fields.
“Your people taugbt mine to build
machines, and with them to build cities.
A hundred generations passed before the
great cities were completed. The strong
men taught slowly, but taught us every¬
thing.
WORLD OF PURPLE LIGHT
71
“At last the number of people in the
great cities could not be counted. Half
the forests were cleared to grow food.
The food your strong race needed was
now a small item.
“Railways were built and people trav¬
eled between the cities. Your strong
race no longer found it necessary to ap¬
pear often. With their help my an¬
cestors had become a great people, and
could carry on our own civilization.
“Each city was ruled by one man, and
he alone might seek audience with the
metal men. In all there were thirty
cities and thirty rulers who, when they
needed advice, conferred with the strong
men.
“The day came at last that the strong
men sent word that no food would be re¬
quired after a certain time. There was a
long explanation and a strict warning
to keep the racial blood clear from any
tendency to intermingle with the tribes
in the planet.
“Many laws were prescribed. These
were cut in huge plates and set up in
every city, so that no one could plead
ignorance.
“The strong race was leaving our
planet, returning to its legendary home.
“At the time set for departure as
many as could leave the cities journeyed
to the big water to see the giant fish
that would take away our benefactors.
“It was a sight that is well recorded
by men who saw it. The flying ma¬
chines of the strong men were coming
and going constantly, landing on the
water side of the great metal thing which
floated, like an egg the size of a city.
With bated breath my people watched as
supplies were loaded into the great fish.
“At last the glistening fish sank below
the surface of the water, but not before
every flying machine had been destroyed.
Then, before the fish was out of sight,
the city of clouds exploded and left noth¬
ing but a wreck in the mountains as
proof of its existence.
“Among the directions left for my
people to follow was an order to care for
the building of the dead, and to keep
our history recorded on its walls. There
must be an apartment in readiness for
the day of the return of the strong race.
Food must always be kept waiting, as
you found it, Tom, Wootor.
“After the strong men had departed
and there was no longer a supreme
power, trouble started. The leader of
each city seemed suddenly imbued with
the desire to rule the planet. War broke
out.
“But, lacking flying machines, this
soon stopped and eventually one leader
was elected as Arbter. The laws your
people left were forgotten.
“Suddenly strange disease broke out
among my people. Death became com¬
mon, seemingly without cause.
“My race was doomed. People died
tike flies. There seemed to be no one
that was immune. Inside the time of
three generations there were scarcely
enough people to carry on the work in
the cities.
“Then it was we remembered the or¬
ders left by the strong men, and hur¬
ried to get the building of the dead in
shape for their promised return. Many
thousand men worked constantly to
carve the walls and carry treasures from
every city in the planet to decorate them.
For with work came hope.
“AT LAST, the city of Jeelib was
cleared of life. A way had been discov¬
ered to isolate the diseased. We steril¬
ized Jeelib from towers to foundation
stones.
"Everything was in readiness ; those
who were free of disease were sent here
to live. There were less than five hun¬
dred in the group and life was hard.
“The people who came here were the
ancestors of the white men now in the
dty. They have grown fewer with each
72
ASTOUNDING STORIES
generation until there are only a few
more than a hundred left.
"There were many more men than
women in the people free of disease, and
instead of balancing, the ratio has re¬
mained the same. Only a few of the men
in each generation have been able to
marry.
"For several generations my people
tried to work out some way of increasing
the number of female children, but with¬
out success. The lack of women caused
a great deal of trouble. In the early
years of life here, several men were ex¬
ecuted for interfering with other men’s
wives.
"In the laws that were left for us to
follow there was a warning never to
mingle our blood with that of any other
race in the planet, but my people were
weak.
“In the nineteenth generation, some of
the young men decided they need not
live without mates. They had seen beau¬
tiful women amongst the forest tribes.
“They packed up their belongings and
went forth, seeking the women of the
forest.
"A long time passed before they were
heard of again, and then only because
they fled to the city for protection. For
many days the forest people strove to
break through the walls, seeking venge¬
ance. Our men had mated with the forest
women, and everything went well until
children were born.” Lotan’s voice was
husky and forced. His eyes were
averted, His face flamed. But he
went on.
“When the forest people saw what the
marriages had brought forth they tried
to kill all of the men from Jeelib. In¬
stead of siring normal children — my an¬
cestors were the fathers of the creatures
who do our work.
“My people could not bring them¬
selves to destroy children who carried
some of their own racial blood. So they
were allowed to live, and the present
race has sprung from the few who were
brought within the city walls. The hairy
men are related to every white man in
the city.”
Lotan stopped talking. Tom Corbin sat
silent, a scowl on his face, his brain rac¬
ing. There were a thousand questions
to ask, and he dared ask nothing. He
had learned much — but there was more,
still to be learned. It was like walking
on eggs to maintain his prestige, yet ac¬
quire the necessary knowledge by which
to maintain it.
“Lotan,” Tom said gravely, “how did
you know that I was one of the strong
men returned? I do not move as fast
as they did, or eat as much food. My
strength is great, but that is because I
have only been on this planet a short
time and come from a place where every
man is strong.”
“Yes, Tom, Wootor. You have come
from the outside recently, but the word
was recorded that you would come back,
that the strong race lived on the outside
of the planet while we live on the inside,
and that neither could live under the
same conditions as the other. That when
you returned you would live here nor¬
mally and be as we are.”
Jumbled, chaotic thoughts churned
Tom Corbin’s mind into a maelstrom of
near-madness. A smothered hopeless¬
ness constricted his throat as he fought
to hold back the utter confusion which
sought expression in his face. His knees
were like jelly.
Inside the earth !
Returned in accordance with proph¬
ecy !
FOR A MOMENT Tom feared his
seething brain was breaking the last thin
bond of reason, to wallow in a tortured
sea of permanent insanity. He held his
breath and felt the fierce throb of blood
from the heart stream beating in his
throat and against his temples. His fists
clenched.
WORLD OF PURPLE LIGHT
73
“Lotan,” he breathed, “a glass of
water, please.”
Lotan hurried away.
Tom’s brain settled in more orderly,
if still racing, sequences. This must be
the Earth! Electrical phenomena coin¬
cided too closely to allow for differing
cosmic conditions. The humans corre¬
sponded too closely to the racial charac¬
teristics of his own people to permit of
any hypothesis other than that of kin¬
ship based on the evolutionary develop¬
ment on a single planet.
Lotan’s return found him calm, and
ready to meet the questions in his wor¬
shiper’s eyes. He sipped the water
slowly, thoughtfully, and the fevered
flush receded from his face.
“Lotan,” he began softly, “your peo¬
ple are not to blame for what some of
Suddenly, with a blinding glare, an electric shock nearly
knocked Tom from his feet.
74
ASTOUNDING STORIES
your racial kin (lid many generations
ago. As I understand it, there is no one
alive now who is descended from the
same men who fathered the hairy men.
“I cannot blame you or your people.
It was bad that you did not follow the
laws. You have lived with the silent
shame that you were related to the hairy
men. This is a mistake.
“From now on there will be no men¬
tion that they are sprung from your peo¬
ple. With this generation shall end all
knowledge of it. The law against mar¬
rying any but a member of your own
race still holds, but it shall be taught that
a mixture only results in disease and
death.
“That is my order. Warn the people
that if they do not obey my commands
there will be punishment. I hope soon
to be able to give you wives, but at the
moment it cannot be done. Go now and
tell them.”
Lotan stood up and faced Tom Cor¬
bin. Then he bowed low.
“Thou art wise, Tom, Wootor. My
people have suffered to think they were
related to the hairy men, but now they
will be free. We are not directly de¬
scended from the same men. Those men
never had other mates than the women
of the forest.
“We are in the section of the building
that the strong men used to store their
records. You will want to see the things
they left for you. Shall I show you the
way ? My people dare not enter, but you
can go anywhere within the section with¬
out danger, Tom, Wootor.”
“What - Oh, yes.”
He followed slowly as Lotan walked
back through passages that entered the
section Tom had never seen. The build¬
ing was evidently built in two separate
sections, from basement to roof, and they
had seen only one.
At the end of a passage that at first
appeared like a dead end, Lotan stopped
and pointed silently to a blank wall
ahead. Then he turned and headed to¬
ward the council chamber to deliver the
message Tom had given him.
VI.
TOM stood facing the blank wall.
Another section of the building was be¬
yond. There must be a passage.
The Earthman walked slowly forward,
then hesitated. For generations these
people had faithfully carried the memory
of the entrance to the forbidden section
of the building. Perhaps as time passed
they -
As he drew closer the light was
poorer. It was quite a distance to the
nearest electric bulb. The stone at the
end of the passage appeared slightly dif¬
ferent in color from the walls ; but it
was still stone.
Suddenly, with a blinding glare, an
electric shock nearly knocked Tom from
his feet. He could feel the energy tin¬
gling through his body from head to foot,
and his mind was nearly blank before
the shock eased up. Then it slowly less¬
ened, and as it receded, the stone ahead
of him slid to the side.
For a moment he dared not go on.
Then his eyes, blinded by the bright
purple light, began to clear.
A few feet beyond the doorway was
a room of vast proportions. It looked
like a comfortable study back on Earth,
save for the dust of ages which clung to
everything. Tom had never seen such
comfort as was displayed before him
now. An iron door swung on its hinges,
just beyond where the stone had slid
back into the wall, as if it were to lock
the place up when the people inside left
for any reason.
The room was inviting, but Tom
dared not go on. The electric shock was
a sample of the forces he might find be¬
fore him. He was going through that
door, but Zola must be told, first. He
WORLD OF PURPLE LIGHT
75
wouldn’t dare take such chances with¬
out letting her know that he might never
return.
One precaution that he took before
leaving was to close the iron door. Then
his heart sank. It snapped shut, and a
lock held it fast. His hand was on the
knob. He pulled it away. Then he
reached forward and touched it again,
to be sure it was locked tight. To his
amazement, the pressure of his hand had
started the mechanism in motion again,
and the door stood ajar.
Several times he closed it and the lock
sprang into place ; then, when he
touched it again, the bolt slid back, leav¬
ing the way open ahead. Somehow he
felt that it would not work for any one
else. The combination was in his finger
tips, but he didn’t yet know what it was.
Somehow that room had been guarded
against natives of the planet ever enter¬
ing. The electric shock that had hit
him so unexpectedly would have lolled
any of the weaker men who inhabited the
city.
Zola insisted on returning with him to
the dust-laden room. She was afraid,
but she would rather die with Tom than
to let him go alone.
Lotan had returned by the time they
were ready to go, and watched fearfully
as they walked down the passage.
Bill stood mournfully while they left
him. He wanted to go, too, but Tom was
afraid that he might get into mischief.
As they approached the door, Zola
held tight to Tom’s hands. But he
feared that they would meet another
charge of electricity, and made her wait
while he stood in the same spot as be¬
fore, for several minutes. But there was
no repetition of the energy lash that had
struck him the first time.
When Zola joined him, he touched the
knob on the door, and it swung in on
soundless hinges. A faint whistle could
be heard in the distance, as Bill saw them
enter.
Zola was speechless as she gazed on
more luxury than she had dreamed could
exist. There was furniture with deep,
inviting upholstery. The walls were
lined with books. For a moment Tom
couldn’t believe his eyes — but it was
true.
It was the first sign of reading matter
he had seen since he landed in Borid.
Zola slipped away from him, was
dusting one of the chairs. She sat down
carefully, as if it might break; then she
relaxed. Tom smiled to see her face.
He walked around the room and re¬
moved several volumes from the shelves.
Instead of being bound the pages had
to be lifted separately and moved to a
hollow section of the opposite cover to
keep them in rotation. He dusted a
spot on the shelf and laid them down
carefully.
His attention focused on a small ma¬
chine like a radio cabinet, with small
dials on its face. He moved one experi¬
mentally.
A FAINT GLOW appeared inside;
then a voice spoke from an opening. At
the unexpected sound Zola screamed and
landed on Tom’s back. But when she
saw that he was not afraid of the strange
voice coming from a machine, she tried
to calm herself and listen.
“Greeting, Earthman. I have been
waiting to greet you for many centuries,
as you figure on the outside of the planet.
I might be one of your ancestors, but
you may not know.
“I do not know what changes my race
will have gone through before you are
whisked back to the inside of the world.
It may have deteriorated to the point
where you will do more damage than
good to the simple people you have seen.
“You stand in a room prepared for
you before we returned to the outside of
the planet. Yes, we knew you would
come. You are the only man who will
ever be brought to the interior. It may
76
ASTOUNDING STORIES
have taken eons for the giant rotor to
build up sufficient power to draw you
inside, and the machine which did the
work burned out when you were re¬
formed in your human body.
“If you will find a comfortable seat
and listen intently, I will give you a his¬
tory of what took place and why you are
in this room at the moment.
“If you think it was an accident, you
are mistaken. Everything that has hap¬
pened to you was planned when the race
in this city was just above the savage
state.”
Tom looked around him, as if he ex¬
pected to see some one standing behind.
The voice had even asked him to take a
seat. Then it stopped for a moment,
and he followed the advice, dusting the
nearest chair and sinking into it.
The voice continued: “What your
Earth name is I do not know, but if you
didn’t come from my race you could
never have withstood the electric cur¬
rent that hit you beyond the door. It
will never return again ; the circuit is
dead. It was simply a trap to stop the
natives of the planet from entering this
room and finding the scientific knowl¬
edge that is stored in this part of the
building.
“Everything is here, from a knowl¬
edge of chemistry to an explanation of
the principles we used in the construc¬
tion of the giant power plant. With your
strength and stamina, you may live for
an untold time in this world, to use this
knowledge for the benefit of these peo¬
ple, if they are ready to receive it.
“At the moment I speak another race
has reached the point of evolution that
the inhabitants of the cities had obtained
when we gave them plans to build with.
“We had one drawback that you do
not have. We couldn’t live a normal
life here. We were dwellers on the out¬
side of the planet, and lived the life you
were accustomed to before you were
drawn over.
“We came into the interior because we
found, by scientific experiment, that the
world was hollow. But conditions we
found made life difficult. The oxygen
in this atmosphere is very low in com¬
parison to that on the surface. The re¬
sult was that we were able to live only
because we created a synthetic world of
our own. But we brought you back
through a process of atomic reassembly
and you can live a normal life.
“We had to leave the surface to avoid
an ice age. We are returning now that
it has passed and is livable again. This
must represent a great deal of time to
you, but it is not as great as you must
think. We are able to induce sleep that
lasts for generations, awaking only to
take nourishment. Of course, some of
us must be awake at all times to care
for our atmosphere and food supply, but
we skip past generations in this way.
“What we will find on our return to
the outside of the planet is a question.
It has been a great many centuries since
we have glimpsed conditions out there.
We will have to start at the beginning
again. Our civilization will be lost. A
thousand generations of advance will be
wiped away ; but it is better to consider
that than to live on, in a synthetic life,
here in the interior.
“I MUST bid you adieu. You will
find everything explained in the vaults
below this apartment. There is repre¬
sentation of a great deal of our science,
but nothing that wall give you an inkling
of the way we traveled back and forth.
It is better that you never attempt to
reach the outside again — life is too dif¬
ferent.
“The races in the interior will be well
and healthy, long after life has disap¬
peared from the outside. For a very
peculiar reason life has grown under
entirely different conditions here. When
we came inside we were aliens. We
had no idea that life could develop as it
has in this part of the planet.
WORLD OF PURPLE LIGHT
77
“You will find every stage of evolu¬
tion in the life in here. There are hu¬
mans, and people just below the hu¬
man stage of life. They are thousands
of generations apart, but by the time
you hear this voice there should be two
distinct developments of human forms
that are very nearly equal. When we
lived here they could not mix. It al¬
ways developed a throwback to animal
life, but now they can probably mate
without difficulty. It will strengthen the
race and you should allow it.
“Do not allow a mixture with any
lower form of life. There will be beau¬
tiful human forms in other races that can
only drop back thousands of generations
by crossing. There should, however, be
one race ready to join hands with the
people we used to construct a civiliza¬
tion.
“This apartment was built for you to
occupy, and planned long before we left
the interior. It is for you and your chil¬
dren. It is your mission to lead these
people forward in civilization, to lift each
race as it reaches the point where it can
absorb knowledge. You must train yoUr
children carefully to rule the millions
who inhabit the interior.
“Your mate should be chosen as the
representative of the highest type of
mental developme: t. Do not try to cre¬
ate any type of civilized development for
the people of a lower order. Such at¬
tempts end in a mixture of blood and
prove disastrous.
“Just one more thing, before you ex¬
plore the chemical and mechanical lab¬
oratories below : there are three immense
power plants, such as the one which
drew you over from the outside. You
have probably wondered at the source of
power, but it is quite simple and will
last and furnish you power as long as
the planet holds together.
“The travel of the planet causes fric¬
tion between the atmosphere and space.
The atmosphere is constantly shifting
and creating electric energy. The gath¬
ering stations, or power plants, gather
the energy that is released and absorbed
by the planet. This is an unlimited sup¬
ply, and the power rotors turn according
to the amount of power that is con¬
sumed. They absorb at that rate. You
will find a complete explanation of the
principles involved in one of the lab¬
oratories, should it ever become neces¬
sary to construct another, or to under¬
take repairs.
“I almost forgot one thing that you
must know, to dissolve any thought of
returning to the exterior : in this world,
which is contained within the planet,
there is considerable gas which is il¬
luminated by absorption of electric
energy. This causes the constant purple
light. You have been transformed phys¬
ically to the point where you can live
normally under these conditions. You
could not live on the exterior again!
“All forms of life here have developed
more slowly than they have on the ex¬
terior, due to the lesser amount of ox¬
ygen. We had no inkling that life could
develop that way until we saw it; but
it is here. Your movement has been
slowed down to conform to these condi¬
tions, but our life here has lived as fast
as it was on the surface.
“We could not have existed for more
than a few seconds in the amount of free
oxygen which exists here, but you are
breathing at such a slow rate that you
absorb sufficient to live normally. The
result is slower life. The only change is
in time. There is no set time here, the
way there is on the exterior, which you
will see before you get through with
your examination of the scientific ma¬
terial we are leaving for you.
“You will make discoveries that will
surprise you, unless you have been
through this section of the building first,
which is doubtful. You were required
to have a small knowledge of the elec¬
tric waves before you could tap the one
78
ASTOUNDING STORIES
which would transfer you. We thought
that the first thing you would do would
be to try and get results from the instru¬
ment I am using, and I hope that is the
way it happened.
“I will bid you farewell now, and leave
you to go on through this building,
which should be of great interest to you.
Do not forget that you came from the
exterior and are the descendant of the
men who built all the civilization that
exists here. It is your inheritance — per¬
haps unwillingly, but yours just the
same — and we have fond hopes that you
will carry out the life picked for you,
and make a greater life for these people
in the interior.
“Representing the race of strong men,
I wish you well. We all hope that the
return of a strong man to the interior
has not been in vain. Your offspring
shall carry your strength and stamina,
and set them alxwe the natives for all
time. So, we give you an empire.”
WHEN the voice stopped speaking,
Tom sat silent. Zola was huddled down
in her chair, watching his face intently.
She was almost afraid to speak. She
had understood enough to realize that it
was a message left for him, by ancestors
who had been gone for many genera¬
tions. and it left her in awed wonder.
Tom was stunned. He had been re¬
ceiving an explanation of events long
before the earliest history of man on the
outside. His coming was planned! It
was not by accident that lie had been
transferred to the interior, but by a ma¬
chine that had waited thousands of years
to perform its duty.
It was mere chance that he was the
one who should tap the strange radio
wave, and enmesh himself in the power
used by the great rotor to cause the
transformation. It might have been any
one of thousands. It might have been a
woman instead of a man. He was a
puppet, a toy, to machines that had
stood idly—1 -waiting — waiting eons to
do the duty they were designed for. He
had set them in motion when he acci¬
dentally tapped the correct wave.
Several times he had wondered if
some one else might not follow him
through the same channel that had
brought him over — but now he knew.
There could never be a repetition of the
same forces. At least not until the peo¬
ple of the interior had developed their in¬
ventive ability to the point where they
could recreate the same machine that had
caused his transformation.
Tom sat so still that Zola began to
worry. She had only a faint idea of
what had happened during the last few
minutes — and, since she knew he was
great being, that was not news. She
did not understand that only in the last
few minutes had Tom understood his
strange adventure.
Zola’s eyes caught sight of a wall
phone. She tried it. It was well past
meal time, and when the voice of one
of the hairy men answered, she ordered
food. Tom was surprised, and glanced
up quickly when he heard her talking
over the instrument.
While they were waiting for the meal,
Tom led her through some adjoining
rooms. There were three bedrooms, all
fitted with luxurious furnishings. Just
beyond the study, as Tom had decided
to call the first room, was a dining room,
with kitchen adjoining. Everything was
far superior in workmanship to the fur¬
nishings in any other building they had
seen, and Tom suddenly remembered
that it was the place he could call home!
It belonged to him. It was the only
place in the planet that he could really
consider his personal property.
A short hall beyond the living room
led to a ramp. This led to floors above
as well as belmv, and Tom’s interest be¬
gan to overcome the gloomy sense of
being imprisoned.
When they returned to the study. Bill
WORLD OF PURPLE LIGHT
79
stood timidly outside. At the first sign
of them he hurried in with the food. No
other hairy man in the city could have
taken that privilege away from him. Far
down the passage, and well away from
the section they had learned was dan¬
gerous, stood a group of the natives.
They had come as close as they dared,
but that was well back from the forbid¬
den doorway.
Bill was in ecstasy. He purred as he
walked from one of the soft pieces of
furniture to another, stroking them
gently and pushing against the resilient
cushions. When his examination was
completed, he looked down the hall and
then pushed the door together. A mo¬
ment later he started to clean the room,
from the soft rug before the door to the
bookshelves, by means of a suction de¬
vice. No one else would intrude on their
privacy if Bill could prevent it.
Tom tried to settle his mind and ab¬
sorb all the things he had learned within
the last few hours, while they were
silently eating from a table recently cov¬
ered by the dust of ages. Zola seemed
greatly concerned by his strange abstrac¬
tion. It was not like him to pay so little
attention to her. Several times she made
little coquettish gestures, but he did not
notice. Womanlike, other women oc¬
curred to her as a possible explanation.
When they had finished the meal she
tried to creep into his arms, but with¬
out success. His mind was too far
away.
VII.
A FEW MOMENTS LATER Tom
got to his feet and told Zola he wanted
to explore the remainder of the building
alone. It disturbed her, but it also dis¬
sipated the fear that his mind was on
some other woman. Secretly, she de¬
cided to look as seductive as possible
when he returned.
As his steps led down the ramp, Tom
searched for a switch, and a moment
later the next room lighted up. Ma¬
chines in model form lined the walls
from floor to ceiling, so heavy with dust
it was hard to see the outlines distinctly.
Some were familiar, but more were new
and strange.
There were machines that would be
massive in a form that could be used ;
even the miniatures were large. The
machinery was too intricate to gain even
a scant understanding without weeks of
study.
After slight examination he went on
to other rooms lined the same way.
There were hundreds of machine models,
in the nine rooms he examined.
Then he entered chemical laboratories.
There were stores of chemicals in sealed
vacuums, in varieties greater than he
had even dreamed existed. With the
chemicals, there were huge volumes of
written material, which he judged must
be formulas and explanations of the ac¬
tion of the different liquids. It was the
first sign of any drugs that Tom had
seen, and it gave hope that there might
be a well-stocked medical supply. There
was a wealth of experimental chemical
apparatus.
There were other rooms beyond, but
he had seen enough. He headed back
toward the level where the living rooms
were located. But at the end of the
ramp he hesitated. The way above
looked tempting, and his feet turned that
way.
Above the apartment he entered a
huge room containing vaguely familiar
objects.
He approached a raised seat at one
side of a machine in the center of the
floor and sat down. Automatically the
lights in the room began to fade, and
shadows crept in from the walls.
It startled him so he was in the act of
getting down from the high seat when a
vague glow began to form in the crystal
before him. A moment later he had
forgotten where he was. His attention
80
ASTOUNDING STORIES
was focused on what was taking form
within the globe.
The scene was familiar, yet he could
not place it, though he racked his brain
for some clue. Objects moved as if be¬
hind a curtain. Everything was hidden
by a bluish haze. Then the haze began
to fade and the objects took form.
Slowly, the truth came to him. In
the globe before his eyes the planets
were pictured as they appeared in space.
A huge light seemed to cast a radiance
from the side, blurring the other objects
at times. Then it would fade out again,
and the planets came back into clear
view.
Tom Corbin had looked through a
giant telescope when he was in school
back on Earth, and had seen the same
scene that was before him now. The
powerful instrument he was using
pierced the density of the planet, and al¬
lowed him to glimpse the stars as he had
seen them all his life.
They were not as clear as though seen
from the outside surface of the Earth,
but clear enough to recognize, and the
names of the various bodies formed in
his mind. A great feeling of nostalgia
gripped him ; tears welled up in his eyes.
Evenings that he had spent on the out¬
side came back, and the longing grew to
the point where he wanted to run ber¬
serk, to tear his way through with his
fingers. It would be worth life for just
one glimpse of a night sky in the world
he had known as a child.
The familiar faces of friends began to
race before him. He slipped back three
years, to the life he had once known.
They came out so clear that he almost
wanted to reach out and grip their hands.
Then he shook his head to clear his
eyes. He wanted to see all he could of
his former life. The planets had shifted
now, and he was gazing at a new set.
Some were sinking beyond the edge of
the globe, while others were appearing
constantly at the side.
There were adjustments in front of
him, and he turned one of them slightly.
The planets swung across the sky at a
dizzy speed, and now the bright glow
appeared on the screen itself. It was
the Sun. But how it traveled ! He
could see the movement. Was it pos¬
sible that he was looking at a reproduc¬
tion, instead of the originals ?
He studied the movement carefully.
Then the Sun disappeared beyond the
other side of the globe. A moment later
the Moon showed. Before, the light of
the Sun had been too intense to permit
seeing any other body. Now the Moon
was swinging across the space at terrific
speed.
SEVERAL TIMES he changed the
adjustments, and a new section of the
universe appeared. It was difficult to
follow the movement of the planets ; they
were traveling at such enormous speed.
Suddenly a cold sweat broke out on
his body. He bent closer to the globe
and watched carefully as the Sun swung
across space. Within minutes it ap¬
peared at one side, circled to the other,
and disappeared beyond the sky covered
by the huge instrument. But somehow
Tom knew that the space represented
before him covered a great deal of the
sky. A vague fear had crept into his
mind, and, as he watched, fascinated, it
grew to be a certainty.
The planets were going on, swinging
across the sky at unheard-of speed.
Sweat covered him from head to foot.
They were traveling at such velocities
that life could not exist on the outside
of the planet. Somewhere, something
was wrong. Emotions surged through
his mind as fast as the Sun traveled in
the huge globe. Vague thoughts that
had bothered him for a long time were
straightening out, and were making
things seem crazier than before. The
facts were before him, and he had to
face them.
WORLD OF PURPLE LIGHT
81
There was a gulf between the life he
was leading in the interior and the one
he had formerly led outside. It was
time! The time element was so vastly
different that he could hardly grasp its
significance. While he watched — days
had passed on the outside — and it had
only been a few minutes to him.
He was living in a world that traveled
in slow motion. A period between rest
on the interior might mean a month —
even two months — on the outside. The
inside of the globe turned on the same
axis as the outside — turned with it, but
there any resemblance between the two
worlds ended.
The strong men, who lived in the in¬
terior so many generations before, did
not move fast; they merely moved at a
normal speed. But to the inhabitants of
the interior they moved so fast as to
appear to be only a vague blur !
While Tom had spent what he con¬
sidered about three years in the interior
— generations had lived and died out¬
side. No one whom he had known in
the former life could possibly be alive.
If he were suddenly transferred to the
outside again — he would land in an alien
world without a friend !
His limp form toppled from the seat
beside the huge televisor, to lie still on
the stone floor. The lights came on
bright again, as the glow faded from
the crystal. Still he lay where he had
fallen.
HOW LONG Tom lay there he did
not know, but when he opened his eyes,
lie knew a long time had passed. He
got slowly to his feet, walked toward the
ramp.
Zola was asleep when he entered the
study, but the sound of his footsteps
brought her to her feet.
Tom did not notice. He was gazing
off into a space that did not exist for
him, staring at nothing. Then his gaze
traveled around the room and came to
rest on his wife. At first he did not
even seem to see her. Then his eyes
focused and he took a step forward.
He laughed ! A strange, high-pitched
laugh ; and Zola screamed. At the
sound of her voice, Tom jumped as if
he were shot, and a more rational look
appeared on his face.
He tried to smile, and shut his eyes
as if to hide a shadow lingering there.
“Zola, I have been terribly upset, but
it is all right now. Do you know, dear,
one of these days we will have to think
about raising a family.”
Zola was happy. She couldn’t see the
expression on his face, for he was hold¬
ing her tight in his arms.
AST— 6
The Fourth Dynasty
After man came the dynasty of
the Koro race -
by R. R. Winterbotham
THIS MANUSCRIPT was found in
a tomb of unbelievable antiquity in the
year 2,678,203, near the excavations in
the Panhandle strata at Dustorium.
Archeologists date the narrative at circa
1 £00,000 A. D. from citations in the
text and from certain implements found
with prehistoric remains in the tomb.
There are certain inconsistencies in
the remains. Even the great antiquarian,
Jone Smeet, who championed the au¬
thenticity of the document, admits the
skeletons found were fossilized remains
of the true homo sapiens, a type which
did not exist later than 50,445 A. D.
Besides, the manuscript is written in the
dead language, English, which is still
translatable by some of the great schol¬
ars of our time, and which was the scien¬
tific language of the world until nearly
100,000 years ago, but in the dialect
form as written in the manuscript is
known only in a few fragments, now pre¬
served in the Continental Museum of
Antiquity, dating back to the Golden
Age of homo sapiens — the Twentieth
Century.
But Dr. Smeet pointed out that these
inconsistencies are adequately explained
in the narrative itself, and science is
rapidly discarding the theory that it is
a hoax, perpetrated by a practical joker.
It is believed to be a key to secrets of
the past. The story of two bewildered
primitive beings in a modern world is
set forth in the text. As folklore of
the 1500th millenium it is probably un¬
equaled. But science is beginning to
realize that it is probably much more
than a myth.
During his life among us,
Victor Hansen spoke often of
his Viking ancestors. They ex¬
plored the seas, Victor declared, while
he explored the ages. His words,
doubted by some, were the only clue to
his race. The Academy of Koro In¬
stinct, in compiling what we know of
Victor Hansen, does not seek to enter
into the controversy which raged
throughout Hansen’s lifetime with us
and which probably will rage long after
we are dead. We will set out only what
Hansen disclosed of himself in his val¬
iant career and what was learned from
that mysterious being, Georgiana, who
appeared at his side on the battlefield
of Xubra fifty years ago.
Victor Hansen said he was bom on
the tenth of July, 1910, in the city of
St. Paul, Minnesota, wherever that can
be. He died in the year 1,500,051, giv¬
ing him a life span of 1,498,141 years.
This must be accepted on its face value,
because his glands lacked development
enough to be tested for veracity by our
machines.
He was 27 years old, he said, when
he undertook the experiment that
brought him out of the dim prehistoric
past into our modern times. He was
an embalmer, a profession which had to
do with preparing the dead for burial.
In his experiments to perfect a new
type of fluid, he discovered a preserva¬
tive that prevented not only the decay of
tissues, but preserved life itself. It gave
the human body a hardness of diamond,
which could withstand even the erosive
action of wind and water. It was his
THE FOURTH DYNASTY
83
belief that life could be sustained for
thousands, even millions of years by this
method.
Assisting Victor in his work was a
female homo sapiens, Georgiana Jonson,
also of Viking ancestry. We may sup¬
pose that these primitive creatures had a
certain lack of the emotional balance that
is the characteristic of the Koro race,
and between the two developed a type
of mania which Victor termed love.
The word appears frequently in old
manuscripts which have been recovered
from ruins, but a true definition has
never been given to us by scientists of
our time. Victor, when he was informed
of this, said that no true definition had
been given in his time, either.
The mental state may be described as
a mania for a creature of the opposite
sex. The scientific mating of our own
age has made such a mania obsolete.
In Victor’s age, however, the mania
was prevalent, and he was seized with
a severe case. He became restless. His
natural psychology was disturbed. The
disease even affected Victor’s appetite.
From the symptoms, some of our mod-
84
ASTOUNDING STORIES
em physicians diagnosed the case as a
sort of mental paresis, affecting Victor
after a fashion that certain lower-type
Korans are afflicted when exposed too
long to the sun’s rays in the strato¬
sphere. It can be cured by several
known drugs.
Victor apparently had no desire for a
cure. He nursed his sickness with de¬
termination, and he became obsessed
with a monomania for Georgiana.
She spumed him. Although they
were often together in their work in
conducting the ancient, barbaric funeral
rites, the disease apparently was not con¬
tagious, or if so, it was slow to develop
after an exposure.
Victor believed she was immune to
the disease. He explained that his so¬
cial status was such that she was slow
in contracting the affliction from him.
He received such a small compensation
for his work that marriage, or the quar¬
antine devised by the tribe for persons
ill with love, probably would be distaste¬
ful to Georgiana, since it would entail
much hardship. Georgiana sought quar¬
antine with a more wealthy invalid.
Despite Victor's resignation to the
loss of Georgiana, the disease gnawed
at his vitals. Complications set in and
he was beset with a desire for self-
destruction.
Even in that age, however, the social
instincts had made their appearance. Vic¬
tor, in resolving to die, decided to do so
in a fashion that would benefit his fellow
creatures. He prepared a potion of his
fluid that preserved life as well as cells.
He wrote out his formula and that of
the antidote which must be administered
to restore life. He prepared a dose
heavy enough to counteract any amount
of the antidote for one hundred years.
He lifted the vial to his lips and drank
deeply of the preservative. .
Meanwhile, Georgiana had contracted
the love disease from Victor. Unbe¬
knownst to the young embalmer, she
had decided to abandon her resolve to
seek a wealthy mate. She came to Vic¬
tor’s laboratory to accept his offer to
go into quarantine together. Instead of
finding her lover, she saw his preserved
body on the floor.
“Alas ! There was nothing left for
me to do but join him,” Georgiana de¬
clared.
But she did not do so at once. First
she read the message he left behind.
Learning that Victor was not dead, but
preserved for one hundred years or
more, she resolved to join him.
She used her savings to build a venti¬
lated tomb in a cavern in some rocky
mountains. A mineral spring was di¬
verted into the tomb to work a mecha¬
nism cleverly devised by the young
woman. Small deposits of the mineral
would be left behind as the water flowed
across the floor of the tomb. Georgiana
arranged that when the deposits reached
a certain amount, they would trip a
lever which would plunge a hypodermic
into Victor’s shoulder. At Victor’s side
she placed a glass tube, containing food
and an additional supply of antidote.
A note in the tube confessed her love
and pleaded with Victor to awaken her
so that they could enter quarantine to¬
gether.
NEAR the close of the hundred years
in which Victor and Georgiana slept in
the mountain, the geological forces that
caused the lowering of the entire range
in that vicinity, which is a short dis¬
tance west of the Panhandle region, be¬
gan working. The spring ceased to
flow. Victor and Georgiana, forgotten
by the world, slept on.
As they slept, the Third Dynasty of
the world came to an end. Man was
the Third Dynasty. Before man was
an age of reptiles ; huge dinosaurs
roamed the Earth and ruled the Earth.
Before the reptiles there was an age of
fishes. Each dynasty was radically dif¬
ferent from the preceding one.
The psychology of fish, as near as our
THE FOURTH DYNASTY
85
scientists have been able to discover, is
one of living and reproducing. Fish
have no other aims in life.
Reptiles, while living and reproduc¬
ing, have a desire for power. They are
stubborn fighters. They live, reproduce,
and fight to conquer.
Man, the Third Dynasty, acquired a
desire to knozv. Man lived, reproduced,
fought and thought. But the thinking
was not pure thought. Man was as
anxious to learn a falsehood as he was
to learn the truth. Sophist philosophy
was accorded as respectable a place in
man’s system of knowledge as tbe great
underlying truths of the universe. So
many false concepts crept into man’s lore
that it was often difficult to distinguish
what was true and what was false. Like
the two dynasties before man, the Third
Dynasty fell because it did not progress
far enough.
After man came the Fourth Dynasty,
the dynasty of the Koro race. While
we live and reproduce, those things are
not important. While we fight and
think, they are not the motives of our
civilization. The true Koran seeks
truth. He achieves symmetry in thought,
appearance and in his deeds.
Victor and Georgiana slept through
the close of the Third Dynasty. The
Fourth Dynasty struggled to be bom.
This struggle is known to every school
child. In a million books the story is
told of how our early types fought hid¬
eous, deformed, specialized descendants
of the Third Dynasty. The specialized
races outnumbered us. but they could
not grasp the underlying truths of the
universe. Their weakness caused their
doom, although even at the battle Xubra,
fifty years ago, our future hung in the
balance.
Just before Xubra was fought, an
earthquake shook the region. In some
manner the hypodermic needle was
thrust into the skin of Victor Hansen.
Enough of the fluid entered his veins
to cause him to awaken.
He found the sealed container left at
his side by Georgiana and he discovered
her sleeping body. Who could describe
that reunion? They broke their fast
with the food preserved at their side for
thousands of centuries and stepped forth
into a new and vastly changed world.
Instead of mountains, they found a
vast plain outside their tomb. Above
even the stars had changed. New stars
had appeared. Old stars had faded.
Constellations had lost their shape. Even
the Moon seemed farther away. They
knew that their sleep had not been a
short one. It had lasted more than a
million years.
AS these two humans stood bewil¬
dered on the Xubran plain they heard
the sounds of the two armies assembling
for battle. Victor heard the low, musi¬
cal cries of our race. The pitch rose,
terrifying, yet beautiful to this primitive
creature. It was the screaming of a
million maniacs, the honking of a vast
flock of geese, the howling of a pack
of numberless coyotes ; yet it was musi¬
cal, a symphony of terror.
In the distance he heard the faint
roar of the advancing Xubrans. More
human in sound, the cries also possessed
an unearthly chant. Gripped with chill¬
ing fear, these two human beings
crouched behind a rock and watched the
two armies advance on the field of bat¬
tle.
The flying Xubrans sailed into the
air and hovered above our forces. Their
psychological blasts threw our ranks in
terror. Hundreds of our men were slain
before our great thinkers could get into
action and bring down the fliers.
Victor and Georgiana were mystified
at this first brush of the battle. They
heard no sound of weapons, yet men
died. It was hard for them to realize
that mental power was being used. The
men of the two armies were thinking
each other to death. Vast beams of fatal
thought streamed across the field, to
ASTOUNDING STORIES
drive soldiers into madness and death.
Each thought impulse was magnified a
thousand times by means of small trans¬
mitters. The Korans, because of their
curious physiological make-up, were
more sensitive than the specialized
races, but our weapons were vastly su¬
perior because of our greater mental
power.
Since the day when our first ancestors
sprang from primitive man, we have
known our destiny to become the Fourth
Dynasty. Not a man hesitated now on
the eve of this decisive battle.
“When the two armies approached
near enough for me to see the individu¬
als, I was horrified and frightened be¬
yond my wits,” Victor states in his ac¬
count of the battle. “Georgiana swooned
at my side. Men of both armies looked
like fiends. The specialized fighters of
Xubra, with savage claws, leathery hides
and wings, looked like fiends incarnate.
The Korans, eyeless, earless and nose¬
less, seeing, hearing and smelling
through sensitive skins, looked like noth¬
ing I had ever seen before. Both had
human resemblances, yet neither race
was human. Then when men began to
fall on both sides without apparent
cause, I knew great forces were at
work.”
Tulor, a captain of our forces, spot¬
ted the rock behind which Victor and
Georgiana hid. Realizing its strategical
value, he set out with a party of soldiers
to capture the place. The withering fire
of the Xubrans killed all of the men, ex¬
cepting Tulor himself, who reached the
rock badly wounded.
Victor did not know what to expect
from this creature who appeared sud¬
denly at his side, raving like a madman.
To Victor’s surprise, the man spoke in
English — the language that has been
spoken for untold ages on the Earth.
“Who are you?” asked Victor.
Tulor at first mistook the two human
beings for Xubrans, and he turned his
thought blast on the two of them. To
his surprise, it had no effect on their
primitive minds. A ray so powerful
that it could have paralyzed the brain
of a Xubran in two seconds, left Victor
and Georgiana unharmed.
Tulor gasped : “Tell me — are you
creatures of the Earth, or do you come
from another plane? Never in my life
have I seen anything like you. You re¬
semble pictures I have seen in a museum
— pictures of ancient animals that once
roamed the Earth!”
“We are a man and a woman,” said
Victor. “We are creatures of the Earth.
How long we have slept, we do not
know; but we have no desire to injure
you. All we ask is safety.”
“Safety! Creature, you are immune
to dangers that lie about you. A few
moments ago I turned my thought ray
upon you. Tell me, did you feel any¬
thing?”
Victor shook his head. “I felt noth¬
ing.”
Tulor turned on another blast of his
ray. Victor stood unflinching in its
path. Then Tulor swung the ray to¬
ward the Xubrans. Men in its path fell
like straw. “See? You are able to
withstand that.”
“Stop!” screamed Georgiana. “That
slaughter, it’s awful!”
Before either man could stop her, she
sprung to her feet and ran across the
plain between the two armies.
For minutes men of both armies
looked at what they thought was a mira¬
cle. In the center of a battlefield, with
rays coming from all directions, this
woman stood unscathed. She was dressed
in clothing that was in tatters; her hair
fell down over her shoulders ; but she
stood erect, beautiful in the moonlight.
The Xubrans thought her a goddess.
The men of our armies, better versed in
science than the primitive enemy,
thought her to be a fossil come to life.
The firing on both sides suddenly
ceased.
Across the plain ran another figure.
THE FOURTH DYNASTY
87
It was a man. He stood beside the
woman.
“Hold your fire !” ordered Victor, for
it was he.
But the Xubrans were demoralized.
Throwing down their weapons, they ran
screaming from the field. Our armies
advanced, cheering, to victory. The
tide had turned. Our armies would
never be opposed again.
The suicidal mania of a lovesick swain
of the Twentieth Century had changed
the history of the world in the 1501st
millennium.
THE TWO “living fossils” were car¬
ried to our capital, Koropolis, in royal
state. They were feted and honored
throughout the kingdom. Emperor
Chrubo gave them rights of full citizen¬
ship, an honor which had never before
been conferred upon a lower animal.
Our scientists began their controversy
as to the authenticity of the two. Many
of them doubted that a man and a woman
could survive 1,500,000 years in a state
of suspended animation. An inquiry
was held. The following is a transcript
of the record of the inquisition:
Question: Who are you?
Answer: My name is Victor Hansen.
I am a citizen of the United States of
America.
Question: On what planet is this lo¬
cated ?
Answer: The Earth.
Question: What part of the earth ?
Answer: Have you never heard of
America? I was born in St. Paul.
Surely you’ve heard of that?
Chrubo, interrupting: I recall a valu¬
able fragment in our museum which
carries on it a mystical incantation,
“Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul.” We
have always believed it had some re¬
ligious significance. Get it, will you,
and let Victor examine it.
Victor — examining the fragment: It
is a railroad time-table, sir.
Chrubo: You see! It is religious.
The ancients worshiped time!
During the inquiry our scientists were
considerably amused at Victor’s primi¬
tive mathematics. It was the first genu¬
ine proof we have had that the Einstein
Fables — which every mother reads at
bedtime to her children — were fully be¬
lieved at one time.
Question: What is the sum of two
plus two?
Answer: Four. I know the answer
to that one, all right.
Question: Two plus two do not equal
four. The correct answer is three.
Answer: What? Two plus two has
always been four!
Question: Let us hear you count.
Answer: One, two, three, four -
Question: How much is one and
one?
Answer: Two — I think.
Question: That is correct. The first
number doubled equals the second. It
is only logical that the second number
doubled should equal the third. Three
follows two ; therefore, two doubled
equals three. There is no relationship
between two and four.
Answer: I suppose you will say that
two and three do not equal five.
Question: Of course not. Two and
three equal three and one half. Any
school child knows that.
Answer: But supposing three men
came into the room, and only you and
I were there to begin with. Wouldn’t
there be five of us?
Question: We are discussing figures,
not facts. Supposing that you prove that
two and three make five?
Ansii’er: I’m afraid I can’t; I’m not
familiar enough witji mathematics.
Question: We can prove that two
and three make three and one half. Each
numeral in our system, beginning with
two, is double the number preceding it.
If two twos are three, three and two
would be three twos, or three and a half
of three.
68
ASTOUNDING STORIES
Answer: Your numerical system is
different than mine. I’ll stick to mine.
Question: Why is it different? We
use the same figures.
MANY OTHER FACTS were elic¬
ited during the investigation. The out¬
come was that the investigators proved
that Victor’s mind was enmeshed with
Sophist philosophy, which held that facts
and figures should always correspond.
It was as much as to say that if a man
dreamed, he should do as he dreamed;
that no fiction should ever be written;
that lie and truth are the same.
It is unfortunate that a transcript of
the inquisition found its way among the
common people. Victor became more
than the hero of Xubra. He was the
leader of a new philosophical movement.
Chrubo did the best he could to stop it,
but at length he, too, was converted.
There was danger, of course, in the
idea, but the people of Koropolis loved
danger. Our mathematical systems were
revised ; dreams were made facts by law,
and lies were judged to be truths wher¬
ever spoken.
Victor and Georgiana watched these
changes sadly. In vain they tried to
stem the tide. They could not stop the
changes, however.
One day Victor appeared before the
emperor. “I wish to report, your
majesty, that Georgiana and I are no
longer your subjects. We have returned
to our own people,” Victor said.
“That is the truth,” replied the em¬
peror. By law he could not answer
otherwise. Victor had made a state¬
ment.
From that day to this, Victor and
Georgiana have never been seen in our
land. On this day, fifty years since the
battle of Xubra, a hunting party dis¬
covered this tomb. In it slept bodies
recognizable as those of Victor and
Georgiana. Thty were dressed in Xu-
bran costume, indicating that after their
departure from Koropolis they had
made their home among these savage
people. This manuscript is being left
at their side, so that their true history
may survive to a later age.
BUT the true history of Victor and
Georgiana needs a note for its comple¬
tion. The manuscript discloses that , be¬
yond a doubt, they were misunderstood
by people of the Fourth Dynasty, even
the people of Xubra, who were the true
dominant types of the dynasty. The
Korans and Xubrans, like fish, reptiles
and men, had their undoing in sophistry.
Fish believed that truth lay in life and
reproduction, and they were wrong.
Reptiles were wrong even when they
added struggle to their aims of life.
Mankind, in seeking to correlate facts
and figures with all-embracing knowl¬
edge, lost its race in domination. The
Korans sought to legislate truth into
being, when truth can only exist with a
lie by its side.
When Victor and Georgiana came to
live with the Xubrans, they did not seek
life; they did not seek children; they
did not want strife; they did not want
knowledge, nor did they want truth.
They gained all of these things.
Their children married Xubrans, who
were not so fearful to look upon as the
Korans claimed, but who were only
slightly developed beyond the human
stage.
The descendants of Victor and Geor¬
giana of the Twentieth Century are
known to be the founders of the Fifth
Dynasty, which wants nothing and by
wanting nothing gains everything. An¬
other million years have passed, and the
impulse to self-destruction by an em-
balmer’s assistant in the Twentieth Cen¬
tury remains the luckiest thing that has
ever happened to the organic kingdom.
NO ASTRONOMER ever studies mers; a bit of thought will remind one,
stars, planets or other heavenly however, that since no astronomer has
bodies. Most astronomers be- ever reached Mars, none can have stud-
lieve they never will, though some hope ied it. The astronomer spends his life
eventually to be able to study other studying light, radiation, and the charac-
planets. There is a general misunder- teristics of radiation,
standing of the life study of astrono- All astronomical knowledge possessed
A Study of the Solar System
Article No. 7 by John W. Campbell, Jr.
THE SINGLE CLUE
90
ASTOUNDING STORIES
by man to-day has been obtained solely
by the study of the single clue available
to mankind: extraterrestrial light com¬
pared with terrestrial light sources.
There is, perhaps, a very minor and un¬
important exception to that : meteors
and meteorites (a meteorite is a meteor
that reaches Earth’s surface) have
yielded confirmatory data. But even
that is largely misleading, since meteor¬
ites all contain enormously higher per¬
centages of either silicon or iron than
typical specimens of universal matter
would. Present knowledge indicates that
instead of iron or silicon dominating the
universe, as meteors indicate, hydrogen
probably constitutes at least one third
and probably one half of all matter.
Thus, of necessity, an astronomer is
actually a student of light, its properties,
and observable phenomena of light.
The next planet to be considered in
this series on the solar system is Jupiter.
Jupiter differs so widely from the pre¬
viously considered planets ; Jupiter has
done so much for this study of light, and,
in turn, the study of light has yielded
so much data regarding the planet, that
it is imperative we understand better
what and how we study, than that we
simply quote facts.
The Greeks were not great experi¬
mental scientists ; they preferred the do¬
main of logic to actual experimental
proof. But the Greeks did make some
highly ingenious experiments, and their
logic was generally sound. They had
already developed two opposing theories
)f planetary motion : the stationary Earth
circled by stars, Sun, Moon and plan¬
ets; and the stationary Sun circled by
the planets and the rotating Earth.
As an excellent example of their ex¬
perimental ability, the Greeks measured
the speed of sound thousands of years
ago, and obtained highly creditable re¬
sults. Modem methods depend on wave
length of sound, and the vibration period
of a column of air over water, or some
variation of that; a highly technical.
though highly accurate method. The
forthright Greeks did it almost equally
well by having two men stationed on
hilltops, each equipped with noise mak¬
ers. A signaled to B and B replied to
A. A measured the time elapsed be¬
tween the time of his signal and B’s re¬
ply. Then, knowing the distance A to
B to A, and that time, they readily got
the speed of sound.
NATURALLY, being interested in
light, they tried the same scheme with
it, using torches, or heliograph mirrors.
Also, naturally, they failed to detect any
elapsed time, since the twenty-mile jour¬
ney took light so infinitesimal a frac¬
tion of a second But that by no means
meant that they had learned nothing;
they had. They recognized it by add¬
ing to the first law of light — “Light trav¬
els in straight lines” — a second law of
light: “Light travels at immense (infi¬
nite?) speed.”
To understand the importance of this
remember that Kepler worked entirely
from Tycho Brahe’s observed results,
working backward from results to a the¬
ory which would account for those re¬
sults. It was Tycho Brahe’s extreme
accuracy that made Kepler go to the
elliptical orbits rather than the old circu¬
lar-orbit theory, and derive the im¬
mensely important Kepler laws. In
turn, Newton’s laws of gravity were
based on Kepler’s discoveries. All
worked back, then, to the accuracy of
Tycho Brahe’s observations.
But Earth moves in an orbit 186,000,-
000 miles in diameter. Thus it takes
light almost exactly 1,000 seconds to
cross that orbit at the actual speed of
186,000 miles a second. In observing
Mars position then — since Mars is some¬
times about 50,000,000 miles from Earth
and sometimes about 230,000,000 miles
distant — Mars is never where we see it,
due to the time light spends in crossing
that gulf of space; it is always at least
50,000,000 divided by 186,000 seconds
THE SINGLE CLUE
91
away from where we see it ; and Mars
travels at a speed of many miles a sec¬
ond !
The error is never less than that, and
at times rises to 230,000,000 divided by
186,000. But Mars is large, and even
that distance of motion is unimportant,
so Kepler got the right answers. But
— if light traveled only 186 miles a sec¬
ond, the results would have been utterly
unintelligible. More than a million and
a quarter seconds would have been re¬
quired when Mars was on the far side
of the Sun ; in other words, Tycho’s ob¬
servations would have shown Mars
where it had actually been more than
two weeks before!
But the ancient Greek experiments
had shown that light did not travel so
slowly, so Kepler could go ahead with
confidence. Knowledge of this property
of light, high speed of travel, formed
the basis of the greatest single discovery
of all time to that date ; Newton’s grav¬
ity.
And the straight-line-travel knowl¬
edge made Newton’s gravitational the¬
ory an immensely powerful tool for ana¬
lyzing light. For straight line travel
made light a good indicator of position,
which sound, capable of rounding cor¬
ners, is not. From position and change
of position Newton's gravity theory was
able to make light reveal something it
did not intrinsically show at that time:
the mass of the radiating body.
IT WAS Kepler’s accuracy, based on
Tycho Brahe’s accurate observations,
that made the elliptical-orbit theory par¬
tially acceptable. But the most ancient
objection, and the most weighty with
logical men, was still to be overcome.
All experience had definitely shown
that unsupported bodies fall. Kepler
was suggesting that unsupported planets,
whole worlds, floated in nothingness on
nothing at all. And an even huger Sun
floated on less, if anything. It was obvi¬
ously illogical.
Don’t think they were foolish. They
were perfectly right; it was completely
illogical. All former experience denied
it ; that Kepler thought of it at all
shows not their hard-headed reactionism,
but his flight of genius. They denied
the theory because it went against all
known fact, and theories that do that
are wrong, and we so regard them to¬
day.
In the very early part of the 1600s —
the greatest century astronomy had ever
known — Jan Lippershey’s children were
also illogical. It was an anciently known
fact that a lens, while capable of magni¬
fying things close at hand, blurred things
at a distance. Two lenses made things
worse — experimental fact which can be
verified by any one. The telescope was
impossible.
Jan Lippershey was a Dutch eyeglass
grinder, and his iniquitous, inquisitive
children played with their father’s hard-
made lenses. The recently invented con¬
cave lenses for short-sighted people were
one of Jan’s specialties. And his illogi¬
cal children, not knowing that telescopes
were impossible, modified the ancient
third law of light — “Light may be re¬
fracted, or bent, from its straight-line
course by any transparent medium” — to
the extent of adding that if a concave
lens is held near the eye, and a convex
lens at a little distance from the eye,
distant things seem near.
That was the invention of the tele¬
scope, and with this added knowledge of
the handling and the properties of light,
astronomy took a great step ; the Kepler
theory was established for all time.
Galileo looked at Jupiter through his
crude little telescope — of the type we
would call opera glasses — and saw the
four giant moons of Jupiter.
He couldn’t say how an unsupported
body could float in space, but neither
could the critics say any longer, “All
previous fact indicates that unsupported
bodies fall.” The four giant, unsup-
92
ASTOUNDING STORIES
ported moons of Jupiter didn’t. They
could watch and observe a miniature
solar system in action, with Jupiter as
the sun, and the four moons as planets.
That was 1610. Naturally an imme¬
diate, vast interest was roused in these
moons. They are so large, and so bright
thiat they would be readily visible to the
Unaided eye, but Jupiter is so much
larger, and so far brighter that his bril¬
liant rays drown out the moons. But
almost anything in the way of optical
aid, even so inefficient as an opera glass,
will make them readily visible. To-day
a ten-cent-store tSJescope will probably
be more powerful a. td more efficient than
Galileo’s triumph of optical science.
Not because we are smarter — simply
because we know all the things Galileo
learned before he died, and many, many
things equally hard-working men learned
and passed on to us.
The discovery of these moons meant
that many observers watched them, and
many turned the wonderful new tele¬
scopes on every other object in the skies.
There were countless thousands of new
discoveries — undreamed-of stars, beyond
the range of naked-eye observation ; dou¬
ble stars where one had been thought to
be ; mountains on the Moon ; the phases
of Venus and Mercury. For the first
time men could readily see that Venus
had a full, new, quarter and half stages.
Ah, it was a wonderful time for astrono¬
mers !
AND ONE ROEMER, a Danish as¬
tronomer, in 1675, calculated the orbits
of those four giant moons. First, of
course, came a long and laborious period
of observation, conducted when Jupiter
was nearest the Earth, and visibility
best. Fortunately, his task was made
somewhat easier by the fact that the
moons frequently went into total eclipse
in the shadow of Jupiter’s immense bulk.
This eased things, because the inade¬
quate telescopes of the day made it hard
to tell exactly how many degrees along
in the orbit it was — but when it winked
out, you knew accurately.
Then six long months of wearisome
calculation was needed before the re¬
sults were finished. Roemer had to wait
anyway, to let any possible errors mount
up till they would show, by adding in
each swing around Jupiter. But at last,
he again observed the moons, and timed
those eclipses and — his calculations were
six hundred seconds off.
Roemer knew he could not be that
far off. Some hitherto unguessed fac¬
tor had entered. It was like calculating
the distance from New York to San
Francisco in inches, and finding your
result six miles wrong.
Roemer announced presently that the
orbits of the moons of Jupiter were this
and so, and that and such, and further¬
more that the speed of light was im¬
mense, and was not infinite. It was
about 180,000 miles a second. For the
first time men had found a signalman
far enough away to measure the speed
of light !
And while they were learning to pin
down the speed of light somewhere be¬
tween “immense” and “infinite,” which
had been a hotly debated point for some
twenty centuries, they learned another
law of light, and cursed it with a hearti¬
ness and depth that would have left the
sailormen of the time in awe. For the
fourth law of light was : white light, re¬
fracted or bent by a lens, is broken up
into colored images, because violet light
is bent more than blue, blue more than
green, and so on.
It meant to the astronomers that their
telescope lenses were limited in size; a
big lens was fine, but it produced images
that looked like a water-color painting
after a cloudburst. Astronomers had
sighed, and turned to mirrors which did
not have this failing — but plenty of oth¬
ers, nevertheless — as the only hope for
larger telescopes.
The sixteen hundreds; the heyday of
THE SINGLE CLUE
93
astronomy! Kepler's elliptical orbits in
1610, or so, the telescope about the same
time, the moons of Jupiter almost simul¬
taneously ; then Newton was born in
1643.
In 1680 — approximately — the laws of
motion were announced, in connection
with the laws of gravity in Newton’s
Principia (The Mathematical Principles
of Natural Philosophy). Nearly two
centuries were to pass before any dis¬
covery of equal importance was to be
made, one that could even challenge the
vast scope of the law of gravity in its
scientific implications. Gravity is a
principle so completely fundamental that
it can never, in all time to come, be
forgotten. Telescopes may some day
use no lenses ; radio may be outmoded ;
but gravity is a fundamental and for¬
ever-important law.
IN 1666 the hated fourth law of light
attracted Newton’s attention, and he
tried an experiment to prove that white
light is a blend of colored light. He
admitted sunlight through a round hole
to a prism, getting then the familiar
colors, ranging smoothly, gradually, fea-
turelessly, from violet through blue,
green, yellow, orange to red. By means
of a second prism he showed that they
could be recombined to a beam of white
light. Newton proved white light was
compounded of colored. It was a great
discovery.
For the fourth law of light is the law
of the spectroscope. By it, to-day, the
secret language of light may be read;
by it, light talks like a garrulous old
maid at a gossip’s tea party. It tells all
the secrets of the universe. By it we
can analyze the Sun and the million-
billion-mile-distant star; we sample the
air of Jupiter and Mars; and we time
the speed of the moving stars. By it
we analyze the minerals of Earth or star.
In 1666 America was a howling wil¬
derness, where Puritan Pilgrims held
on by tooth and toenail to a narrow
strip of seacoast. England had just over¬
thrown Cromwell. Men sought uni¬
corns for their magic, cure-all horns.
Oxygen was not to be dreamed of for
a century and more. Chemistry, the
basis of modern civilization, was al¬
chemy, and men sought the philosophers’
stone.
In 1666 Newton, the man who devel¬
oped the law of gravity from idle specu¬
lation on a falling apple, used a round
opening to produce his spectrum, and
got round images of the Sun in every
color, smoothly overlapping and feature¬
less. A spectroscope uses exactly the
same apparatus save that they have a
thin, hairline slit, so that each color is
thrown in a hairline, sharply distin¬
guishable mark of light.
Literally, by a hairline Newton
missed the spectroscope. Had he used
a slit, the spectrum of the Sun would
have been bright colors crossed by mys¬
terious black bands and lines. He could
not have left that mystery untouched.
He would have found that sodium
thrown on a candlewick would produce
bright-yellow lines matching exactly two
powerful dark lines in the mysterious
solar spectrum. Calcium would have
given him red lines, copper and other
metals -
Chemistry would have started up like
a stung rabbit from spectroscopy, not
test tubes! Oxygen in a year, not a
century and a half. The elements of the
rocks in months.
But spectroscopy waited untouched
from 1666 to 1802. Can you conceive
what an alien world this might have been
had the man who mastered gravity, cal¬
culus and the laws of motion used that
slit, the one great thing that challenges
gravity for supremacy in teaching man¬
kind?
A fair hit on the patrol boat blew off its bow. It went down in seconds.
The
ncr edible Invasion
Concluding a gripping serial novel of
the earth and its dimensional secrets
by Murray Leinster
XI.
AS the scale-armored figures
plunged toward him, bunched
■t- -V together for courage, Steve
slaughtered them. He rested the auto¬
matic rifle on a steam pipe and traversed
it with an inhuman deliberation. Bul¬
lets poured from its muzzle in a deadly
stream. A storm of lead poured into
the charge. It shattered it. Of the men
who had composed it, a dozen dropped
at once. Ten more dropped as they re¬
coiled from the slaughter. More flung
lead dropped all but three of the balance.
And two of the three were Leaders,
judging by the whips which dangled
from their wrists.
Steve savagely concentrated on them.
One crashed down with half a dozen bul¬
lets between his shoulders. The other
screamed shrilly as bullets pulped his
left arm. He careened through a door¬
way and continued to squeal shrilly.
“Not much nerve,” said Steve in icy
calm. “Those Leaders ought to learn
to take it.”
"Now what?” demanded Nick.
"Oh, there’ll be more of them com¬
ing,” said Steve, “and we’ll kill them,
and presently they’ll kill us.”
Lucy said: “W-will you tell me
when you think you — can’t hold out any
longer ?”
Steve jerked his head to face her. She
was pale, but she smiled at him. If her
voice wavered, she could not help that.
“We — tried, anyway, didn’t we?” she
asked cheerfully. “But after what Fran
said, I don’t want to take any chance
of not being killed.”
She touched the revolver in a holster
at her side, over the Invader’s armor she
wore. Steve swore savagely, then.
“We’re fools, Nick,” he said bitterly.
“Fools ! Because we hate these devils,
we’ve thrown away our lives ! We could
have made a break for a place where
they haven’t struck! The cordon was
down! There was nobody to stop us!
We could have broken through, and told
what we knew, and organized men to
fight.”
Nick pulled out a pack of cigarettes
and was absurdly painstaking in his
choice of one.
“Rather late to think of that now,” he
said. “But we’d better be moving, Steve.
We don’t want to stay here!”
“Why? What more can they do than
kill us ?”
“They had spies,” said Nick. “And
those spies would know something about
tear gas. And your friend Fran Dutt
didn’t speak very highly of their methods
of execution.”
Steve suddenly flung up a revolver
and fired at a man dodging past a win¬
dow. The window smashed. Something
came in and exploded with not at all
alarming violence.
“That’s gas now,” said Steve. “Come
on !”
He took Lucy's hand. With Nick on
96
ASTOUNDING STORIES
the other side of her, they broke into a
sudden sprint. Steve swerved sharply
as something else sailed in and burst,
ahead of them. He plunged for the wall
and tore wide a small door there. A
spiral stairway went up and up — and
descended to the ground.
“We can't go down!” said Steve
harshly. “Mobs of them down there!
We’re going up!”
HE RACED AHEAD. For seconds,
for perhaps half a minute, there was no
pursuit. Initiative was not encouraged
in the Underones by the Leaders of the
Invaders. Steve reached a landing with
the others close behind. He halted and
listened. A small window was close by.
He peered out.
“I wish,” he said between his teeth,
“I wish we could convince ’em we'd gone
down ! Something to throw to make a
noise in the courtyard below, there !
What can I use?”
Nick was helpless. Concrete walls.
Concrete floor. Steel spiral stairway.
Nothing - But Lucy reached up.
“Here’s a light bulb,” she said quietly.
“It’ll sound like a shot when it goes off,
too.”
Steve took it from her fingers. There
was a sudden babbling down in the stair
well. Men had at last pushed open the
small door through which the fugitives
had vanished. There was no sign of
them. A voice bellowed arrogantly.
Men started both up and down the
spiral.
Then the light bulb struck outside. It
made a sufficiently loud pop to sound
like a shot to ears unaccustomed to fire¬
arms. The arrogant bellow rose in pitch.
Men tramped down. Shoutings arose.
“Go quietly,” said Steve under his
breath, and again led the way.
He reached out and gathered electric
bulbs as he passed through, and Lucy
imitated him when they reached the top
of the stair and came out into the office¬
like spaces above the generator room.
There were many light fixtures here.
Nick blinked, and filled his arms when
Steve offered to load him.
“Now we go up again,” said Steve.
“I’ve got a hunch.”
They climbed interminably, flight after
flight of steps. And up here, of course,
the Invaders had no occasion to go.
What few figures they saw were those
of power-house employees, stiff and
stark for the second time.
Suddenly they came out upon the
power-house roof. Here was a small
platform and a sort of hut from which
one might see very far indeed down the
river and Narrows, and across to Man¬
hattan on the one hand and almost to
Coney Island on the other.
Steve went to the edge of the roof
and peered down. All was still. But he
saw a few scurrying figures. He flung
out half a dozen electric-light bulbs.
When they struck, they created a com¬
motion by their sound. None of the In¬
vaders actually saw them. They merely
heard the noises. And Steve — making
due allowance for wind — threw two
more, and then three, and a half dozen,
and saw an intensive and extremely cau¬
tious search begin among the buildings
half a block downward from the power
house.
“They’ll think we’ve gotten away,”
said Steve with some satisfaction. “They
consider that they heard us shoot, down
there. They’ll never suspect we’re
actually up here.”
“But — what are we going to do?”
asked Lucy.
“Wait for night. I threw those bulbs
farther away with every batch. They
sounded like a rear-guard action as we
ducked. We simply wait for night.”
He sat down. Slumped down, really.
“And what are we going to do when
night comes?”
“Sneak away,” said Steve in weary
bitterness. “Heaven knows how much
of America they’ve got in their damned
plague spots now! Fran said they’d
THE INCREDIBLE INVASION
take Philadelphia and all the other East¬
ern cities. If they take ’em, they can
hold ’em, unless we can get somebody to
listen to us. And I doubt that we can.
Every man in America who was quali¬
fied to understand what’s happened has
been caught by now. They swarmed
here to find out what the trick was. And
they’ve learned !”
His lips twisted bitterly.
WIND blew strongly but irregularly
across the top of this high building.
From here they could see the small ves¬
sels of the river moving again in blind,
unguided fashion toward either ground¬
ing or collision. They could see the
cities spread out, with infinitely small
specks which were human beings in
cataleptic trance, and larger dots which
were catastrophes.
“I wish,” said Nick, “I wish I had my
cameras.”
Time passed. The last of the moving
dots, which were vessels, became im¬
mobile. The cities were utterly still.
It became midday.
At one o’clock, and two, and three,
there had been no change anywhere.
There was a feeling — hardly an impres¬
sion, more probably a hunch — that fran¬
tic activity went on in the power house
below. Steve watched over the roof
edge, however, and saw not even move¬
ments of Invaders on foot. But he could
not see into the courtyard through which
they had entered the building. At four,
though, they did see a motor truck mov¬
ing on a street in Manhattan, and at
about five thirty one of the great smoke
stacks of the power house belched out
lazy clouds of cknse black smoke.
“Firing boilers,” said Steve. “What’ll
they be using power for ?”
Nick painstakingly changed the dry
cells in his high-frequency pack.
“Oh, for a life on the ocean wave!”
he said gloomily. “Steve, this - ”
But Steve stared at him suddenly, and
grinned.
AST— 7
97
“That’s an idea!” he said. “Is it the
naval militia you belong to, Nick?”
“Uh-huh,” said Nick, surprised.
“Sure! What’s the idea?”
“Come over to the edge of the roof,”
commanded Steve. “Take a squint
down into the navy yard. You’ll take
command to-night, if we have luck.”
He took him to the edge of the roof.
He pointed. He and Nick seemed to
discuss some plan in detail. Steve came
back, leaving Nick flat on his stomach,
studying the ground below.
Lucy looked up at Steve and smiled.
“Woman,” said Steve gruffly, “now
that we’ve got a chaperon and he’s busy,
let’s put something over on him ! Come
around the corner and get kissed.”
Lucy stood up. They walked together
around the corner of the grubby little
penthouse atop the power-house roof.
“I — I thought,” said Lucy, only sec¬
onds later and somewhat breathlessly, “I
— was thinking to-day — when it seemed
like we were all going to be killed — that
it was horrible to have it happen with¬
out really having — kissed each other
since — all this began. We’ve been to¬
gether for days without saying a word
about — caring for each other.”
She was interrupted. She did not
seem to mind.
“But I’m glad,” she said illogically,
an instant later, “I’m glad you felt like
that !”
AND THEN there were footsteps in¬
side the penthouse. The door opened.
A figure came out, looking curiously
around. It wore the scaly armor of
the Invaders. It saw Nick, lying flat
on his stomach and gazing downward.
But Nick happened to be motionless at
the moment. The figure gave him only
a glance. It gazed interestedly at the
river and Manhattan over the water.
Steve drew his revolver, disengaging
his arm from about Lucy with a slow
precision. She saw his face. She
whirled. The Invader was less than
ASTOUNDING STORIES
fifteen feet away. Lucy cried out in a
choked voice.
Steve shot him. There was nothing
else to do.
While Lucy wrung her hands, Steve
faced the penthouse door. But the wind
blew strongly at this height. The sound
of the shot was loud, to be sure, but most
of it would go upward. The wind blew
some of it away. Unless there were
other Invaders close below it, it might
go unheard.
Nick came running lightly, a revolver
in each hand.
“Here’s armor for you, Nick,” said
Steve grimly. “If this chap just came
up here to look about, we may be all
right. But if he’s missed, it’ll be just
too bad !”
For five minutes, for ten, they waited
desperately for the penthouse to erupt
charging figures. None came. Then
Steve opened the door, with Nick ready
to pour a storm of fire within it. The
penthouse was empty. The man had
been alone.
Nick stripped him of his scaly armor
and sighed gustily in relief when he had
donned it, though he left the high-fre¬
quency pack in place until he was sure
it was safe.
“Now I feel better !”
But they continued to stand guard
over the stairway from below. If one
man had come up, others might. And
an alarm, now, meant that they were
trapped like rats. The man they killed
was an Underone, doubtless slipping
away from the supervision of the Lead¬
ers to gaze curiously at the mighty cities
he and his kind were to loot for the ex¬
clusive benefit of his superiors.
Because of that watching, the three
on the roof were not really aware of the
stirring about the gates of the giant
power house. Because of the wind,
blowing at this height, they did not hear
the purring of motor trucks begin. And
because of their preoccupation they did
not see the extraordinary appearance of
Manhattan across the river, when night
fell.
In the gathering night the greatest
metropolis of all the world lay silent and
motionless and seemingly dead.
Darkness settled down. High in the
air, they might have been the only hu¬
man beings living anywhere. Save for
the Invaders, they were the only quick
among ten million dead, for whom the
cities were mausoleums.
“We might as well try to make our
break,” said Steve. “You’ve got your
bearings pretty thoroughly, down be¬
low ?”
1 know the way backward,” said
Nick confidently.
“Then let’s get moving!”
Steve took Lucy frankly in his arms
and kissed her, and then led the way
down the long, many-stepped stair to
the ground. They had checked over
their weapons. The automatic rifles
were ready for instant use. The revol¬
vers were all fully loaded. And Steve,
using Nick’s no-longer-needed high-fre¬
quency pack during the change, had
shifted his scaly armor from beneath his
clothing to the outside. He might pass
as an Invader, in a sufficiently dim light.
IT WAS in the appearance of In¬
vaders, then, that they descended. And,
as they went down, they heard the faint
whining of dynamos, and a dull rum¬
bling which could not be anything but
trucks. Once they heard voices behind
a door on one landing of the stairway.
They reached the spiral stair and de¬
scended that. They came to the door¬
way through which they had escaped
from the generator room. The drone of
dynamos was distinctly audible, but there
was another louder noise elsewhere. De¬
scending, that other noise became loud
indeed. Suddenly they had reached a
hallway, and some one moved near by.
They walked quickly, but very quietly,
through the nearest other door, and they
were in the courtyard into which they
THE INCREDIBLE INVASION
99
had driven the Q. M. C. car that morn¬
ing.
It was a scene singularly like the one
in the trolley terminal in Newark. A
platform, with a helix of heavy bronze
bars inclosing it raised above the ground.
A ramp led to the platform, and a
wavering, bluish light flickered above the
bars of the helix. A truck rolled into
the courtyard, up upon the platform,
flickered — and was not. Then another
and another and another.
An unending stream of heavily laden
vehicles trundled in the gateway. One
by one they rolled up into the coils of
the helix. One by one they vanished
utterly — and the fact that Steve and
Lucy — and Nick too, now — knew that
they simply had had the direction of
their atom poles changed did not make
it seem the less magical. Their atoms
changed the direction of their poles, and
they became matter of another sort than
the matter of our world, and vanished
from it. But they also became matter of
the same sort as the strange world from
which the Invaders came, and they ap¬
peared in it.
Suddenly there was a warning flash
of light, and the stream of trucks
checked. Men materialized from no¬
where upon the platform. They were
clad in scaly armor. They were Under-
ones, and they gaped at their surround¬
ings as they shuffled docilely off the plat¬
form into the courtyard. Voices roared
harsh orders at them. They formed
over at one side of the open space. The
light flashed again, and the movement
of trucks began once more.
The men from the Invaders’ world fil¬
tered out the entrance in groups of four
and five and six. Passenger cars
whisked up, halted, and darted away
fully loaded.
“Efficiency !” said Steve coldly.
“They’ve been taught to drive in the
other world. Cars have probably been
taken there during the last twenty years
and more for their training. Now
they’re brought here, hauled out, told to
find trucks and load them up with what¬
ever loot is to be taken out, and drive
them back. Efficiency, eh? I’ll bet
they’ve even studied maps of the city !”
There was a muffled clanking sound
behind them. Men came out of the
doorway they had just quitted. The
flickering bluish light of the helix lighted
up their bodies. Their armor, though
scaled, glittered with the prismatic color¬
ings of many jewels. They carried the
metal-studded cane whips which were
symbols of nobility. There were arro¬
gance in every movement, in every pose.
The three Americans stood in deep
shadows. They were heavily armed, as
Underones seemed not to be, but other¬
wise they would pass to the casual eye
as Invaders themselves. Steve’s eyes
darted here and there, searching for a
way to slip out of this crowded place
unobserved.
HE WAS so intent that he did not
notice the just-emerged group. Nick
stared open-mouthed at the quite incred¬
ible phenomenon of giant motor trucks
vanishing like so many bubbles in the
midst of the flickering light. Only Lucy
heard, and turned, and gasped.
The group swaggered on. One of the
lesser Leaders brushed against Lucy.
He rasped at her. He raised his whip
and lashed savagely at her. Lucy cried
out in mingled terror and pain — and
Steve went mad.
He whirled, to see the lash descend¬
ing on Lucy’s face. Steve became an
entirely primitive man. He had an auto¬
matic rifle slung across his back and four
revolvers at his waist. But he roared
inarticulately and sprang. His hands
closed about the throat of the man with
the whip, just as that man realized that
Lucy was a girl and was half stunned
with amazement. The two of them went
to the ground together, rolling over and
100
ASTOUNDING STORIES
over, with Lucy crying out to Steve to
stop.
The balance of the arrogant group
gasped in incredulous shock at the sight
of an apparent Underone daring to lay
hands upon one of their superior mold.
Then voices raised in thick cries of
fury. Whips flashed aloft, their metal
lashes glittering, to rake the flesh from
the bodies of these unspeakably insolent
Underones.
Nick opened fire with his automatic
rifle. He, alone, had kept his head. He
knelt down, very coolly, pulled the con¬
tinuous-fire stud and played the rifle
upon the armored men as if it had been
a hose. They collapsed in a kicking and
suddenly shrieking heap. A man cried
out, choking, and a wave of horror filled
the whole courtyard with a panic greater
than merely terror of Steve and Nick
and Lucy. Nick had killed men who
were important among the Invaders. He
had killed, in fact, thirteen of the Lead¬
ers of highest rank.
Some of the Invaders gasped and fled.
The Underones, especially, scuttled off
into the dark like rabbits. Lesser Lead¬
ers, who an instant before had been the
very embodiment of authority, ran agi¬
tatedly about, bawling orders which an
instant later they countermanded.
Steve stood up and said thickly :
“There’s one damned swine who’ll never
lay his finger on Lucy again!”
“You fool !” panted Nick. “You’ve
played hell! But come on! Let’s get
out of here before they get back their
senses !”
He shook Steve’s arm, and Steve said
grimly ; “All right, then. Lead the way.
You know it !”
They ran out, the three of them, and
once blundered into a knot of men who
shouted and fled — though not before
Steve had emptied a revolver into their
midst. Then the dark street and the line
of passenger cars waiting for Underones
to be taken out in quest of trucks and
loot. Steve roared and charged the
first car. Men fled terrifiedly.
Steve thrust Nick into the driver’s
seat, Lucy in next to him, and climbed
on the running board with a revolver
in his hand, as Nick sped off into the
darkness.
In minutes, the car sped into the navy-
yard gateway, narrowly missing the stiff¬
ened form of the guard who had lain
immobile since the city went dead.
Then Steve was saying anxiously ;
“But Lucy, did he hurt you? That
whip — did it cut you ?”
Nick expertly threaded a maze of
roadways, each one of which he had
learned by inspection from the power¬
house roof, and brought the car to a stop
beside a dock. In the starlight the deck
house and upper works of a fast patrol
boat reared up beyond the wharf deck.
“Diesel engines,” panted Nick. “I
think I can start ’em. Don't know how
much fuel, but we can get going. You
cast off while I see what I can do be¬
low.”
He jumped to the deck and hustled
below. In seconds, it seemed, there
were lights down there. He had turned
on the battery illumination system of this
craft. There was an uproar about the
power house which was audible even
here, but the three of them paid no at¬
tention.
Steve anxiously inspected Lucy’s face
by the light coming up the engine-room
hatch. There was but a single cut on
her cheek. The helmet and collar of
the scaly armor had absorbed the rest of
the whip blow.
A sudden roaring, throbbing sound set
up. Nick bobbed above the hatchway
and babbled profanely. Steve ran to
the lines and cast them off. Water
thrashed below the patrol boat’s stern.
She backed out into the river. Nick
wrestled mightily with the gears and
clutch and sent her forward again. Then
she swept downriver at full speed.
THE INCREDIBLE INVASION
101
"Steve, we’ve had our revolution. We’ve got this city — the one you see —
and we’ll get the others.”
102
ASTOUNDING STORIES
XII.
IN A DEAD WORLD there are no
laws. Therefore the small patrol boat
sped through the night without riding
lights or any other thing to betray her
position to possible pursuers. Her draft
was small. Her speed was reasonably
high. Steve, at the wheel, sent her
streaking for the high seas. And. upon
consultation with Nick, they agreed that
it was unwise to use the radio close to
New York. Wherefore they cleared the
land and set off to southward along the
Jersey coast.
For an hour or more Nick puttered
over the engine — running much risk of
doing more harm than good He then
poked about among the stores, and at
last managed to come to some decision
on the amount of fuel there was on board
and the boat’s probable cruising limit.
He came up to the wheelhouse to re¬
port, and yawned as he did so.
“All right,” said Steve, and yawned
with him. “We'll keep going till day¬
break, and then start the radio. That
will be far enough.”
“It should be,” agreed Nick. “Steve,
this hero business is wearing. I’m
going to sleep on the engine-room floor.”
He stumbled away, to throw himself
down on the steel decking and fall in¬
stantly asleep. Steve settled down to an
age-long vigil. But he was at least as
weary as Nick was. He dozed at the
wheel, and Lucy smiled maternally upon
him and stood shoulder to shoulder in
the darkness, steadying the boat on the
course picked out practically at random.
Steve dozed, and jerked awake, and
dozed again, until hours later when Lucy
shook him, crying out that she saw a
light. Which, of course, should have
meant living people. She ran to wake
Nick, while Steve steered toward it.
It turned out to be an automatic
beacon, of the sort which is run by acety¬
lene, is controlled by a photo-cell, and
operates for three months at a time with¬
out attention. The only conceivable vir¬
tue in the incident was that Nick took
the wheel of the patrol boat for the rest
of the weary hours before dawn, while
Steve slept the sleep of the utterly ex¬
hausted.
At dawn, Lucy investigated the galley
and they drank coffee in the dawn light,
while the patrol boat, with an unskillfully
lashed wheel veered remarkably from its
course and nearly ran ashore.
A broadcast receiver in the skipper’s
cabin gave them news while they ate.
It should have taken their appetite, but
it did not. The only station they could
tune in was one in Chicago, despairingly
broadcasting at what was four a. m. by
Central time. The announcer said
drearily :
“Rioting on the lake front, which be¬
gan at four this afternoon when mobs
tried to storm the wharves of lake
steamers, is still continuing. Six police¬
men have been killed. The number of
civilian deaths has not been ascertained,
but at least thirty persons, many of them
women, have been torn to bits by the
mob which struggles to escape the city
before the plague strikes.”
Nick blinked at the other two. The
announcer went on more drearily:
“At midnight, the mobs which have
blocked all exits from the city moved
nearer the center. All efforts of car
owners to leave have been nullified by
these mobs. Every car which has at¬
tempted to get through has been stormed
by panic-stricken people, fighting for a
place in it. In most cases the cars have
been shattered past all usefulness, the
mob thereby defeating its own ends. At
present, gangs of men and women are
raiding private garages to seize cars for
escape.”
Steve drank meditatively and put
down the coffee mug.
“In other cities rioting continues. St.
Louis is still under martial law, which
means that the authorities have not yet
been overwhelmed. Pittsburgh is a city
of madmen, according to advices broad-
THE INCREDIBLE INVASION
103
cast from there. Three fourths of the
population is frantically trying to leave
the apparently doomed city. The bal¬
ance, hopeless of escaping the plague
which yesterday wiped out the Atlantic
Coast from Boston to Washington, has
given itself up to frantic revelry.”
Lucy uttered a cry of dismayed hor¬
ror.
“Boston to Washington! Millions
upon millions of people !”
“Moral effect,” said Steve. “They
can't loot all those cities. But they
smash our civilization with the panic
induced in the part not seized. You re¬
member Fran said they were afraid of
The announcer went on dispiritedly:
“The last advices lead to the belief
that the plague has ceased to advance.
But it was quiescent for a time after
overwhelming Newark. The cities known
to have been wiped out include Albany,
Schenectady, and Troy, in New York, be¬
sides New York City proper. And
Trenton in New Jersey; Scranton and
Philadelphia in - ”
The voice droned through a long list
of names, from Maryland north to
Massachusetts. It went on:
“It has been noticed that only the
larger towns have so far been affected.
No city much under one hundred thou¬
sand population has so far been smitten.
The meaning of this oddity is not yet
known. Flash. Niagara Falls is believed
to have fallen victim to the plague. No
communication has been had with that
city since early to-day. The water power
from the falls, both American and
Canadian sides, failed at eleven o’clock.”
Steve said calmly: “They would hit
at Niagara. There’s plenty of electric
power there ! With arcs of power-trans¬
mission lines, the trick we tried in New
York yesterday morning would revive
a good many thousand square miles. If
we have to work on a long-time basis,
Nick, we’ll fix up a sort of army and
try to seize that for a base of opera¬
tions.”
He switched off the radio.
“Let’s try to start something. You
all set, Nick?”
“Yes,” said Nick. He gulped down
the last of his coffee. “It ought to take
’em an hour to reach us from New York
after we start sending, even if they use
planes. And I doubt that they can han¬
dle them.”
LUCY said nothing. But she started
to clear away the dishes from which the
two men had eaten, as they went to the
desk which was the radio room.
Nick sat down at the patrol boat’s
small transmitter. With somewhat the
air of a musical performer he adjusted
small controls, flipped over a switch, lis¬
tened keenly on a head phone as he ran
through the short-wave bands, and
reached for the key. He sent swiftly and
smoothly, talking quietly as he sent.
“I’m tuned to a channel already in use.
Sent emergency attention and snapped
to hook in a directional antenna and will
get my stuff through that. Said a scram¬
bler would be at work on me and this
was official and emergency.” He
flipped a switch and flipped it back again.
“The Invaders are at it already, trying
to jam the air. There’s a chance,
though, that the angle’s big enough to
separate us. We’ve got a directional
antenna, too. Wait a bit and I’ll tune
it in. They use it for navigation in fog,
sometimes.”
He worked for a moment or so, swing¬
ing a control with one hand while he
alternately sent and listened.
“Good ! I’ve got him. He’s catching
me. Hears the scrambling, too! Now
I’ll shoot the works!”
He poured out his mesage for five
minutes without a pause. He listened,
and sent again. At the end of the second
transmission he jerked back his head.
“He wants to know what frequencies
neutralizes the stuff?”
“It must be under fifteen thousand
cycles,” said Steve harshly, “because it
104
ASTOUNDING STORIES
doesn’t seem to radiate at all. The
feeder wires carried it all over New
York. And it’s probably over ten.”
“Sounds most likely,” said Nick com¬
posedly. “All right. I’m telling him.”
His hand wavered imperceptibly at the
key. He sat intent and earnest, now lis¬
tening concentratedly, at odd moments
sending a few symbols. Then he flicked
off the switch and unconsciously brushed
off his hands.
“It’s done,” said Nick. I had about
six hams — amateurs — listening in on me
— all on directional aerials, which cut out
most of the scrambling. And every one
of them swore that his first job— even
before making a high-frequency pack for
himself — would be to spread the dope I
gave them over all the rest of America.
But it’s doubtful how much good it’s
going to do. Every one of them says
his own town is crazy with terror. Our
whole civilization’s going to pot. But
we’ve done our stuff! Now what?”
As if to answer the question there
came the stuttering, droning hum of an
airplane motor. Then another. The
sound became the deep-toned, distant
roar of many engines.
Steve plunged to the deck to see.
Small, wabbling dots appeared in the sky
— not from the direction of New York,
but from the West. Philadelphia, per¬
haps. There were all of a dozen planes,
but they had not the riveted, rigid look
of an army formation. These planes
were flown by men who had had little
experience in formation flying. It
showed the raggedness of their intervals
and in the variation of those intervals in
flight.
Steve straightened out the uncertain
course of the little patrol boat.
“This is hell !” he said with an extreme
calm. “I’ll have to run the boat ashore,
and we’ll take to the woods, eh?”
The planes were still a very long dis¬
tance away — bare specks against the sky.
“We must be — almost past the dead
area,” said Lucy uncertainly. “If we
could get help - ”
“There’s a navy boat,” said Nick
crisply. “A cruiser!”
STEVE STARED. A nearly form¬
less gray blob upon the sea, it floated
aimlessly. It gave no sign of life at all.
Steve suddenly realized that they had
not seen one sea gull. The dead spot,
then, reached out to sea. He swung the
bow of the patrol boat around. Nick
dived for the engine room.
■‘I’ll see if I can get more speed out of
that engine of ours,” he said hungrily.
“The cruiser'll have anti-aircraft guns.”
"Better than that,” said Steve.
“She’ll have dynamos on board, and
fighting men ! And an arc - ”
Nick uttered a cry which was almost
a yelp of joy, and vanished down into
the engine room. The engine’s speed
picked up. but almost imperceptibly. The
little patrol boat bored through the
waves, straight for the far-away war ves¬
sel.
But the planes came on. There is
nothing more impressively military than
aircraft in combat formation. Yet the
least uncertainty, the least deviation
from mathematical exactitude, and there
is nothing much less so. These planes
came on swiftly, and they were handled
competently enough, but without the
precise deadliness which would have de¬
stroyed all hope of escape.
Their droning hum rose to a growl.
From a growl it became a roar. From
a roar it rose to a thunderous, deafen¬
ing reverberation which filled air and sky
and sea with sound. And then the first
of the planes dived. The sound of its
motor rose in pitch. Steve jerked over
the wheel. The patrol boat heeled over
as it swerved.
The wings of the plane hung batlike
above the fleeing craft for the fraction
of an instant. Something small and
smoking dropped from it. It struck a
wave and exploded with a racking de-
THE INCREDIBLE INVASION
105
tonation. A miniature wall of water
flung the patrol boat’s bow aside — but
the plane had gone on ahead.
Steve straightened out, his lips tense.
But he said evenly to Lucy: “That
wasn’t as bad as I expected. Watch out
for me!”
A second plane dived. Lucy watched,
her face ashen.
“Coming ! He’s leaning over - ”
Steve jerked the wheel frantically.
Another miss. This bomb exploded in
mid-air. Steve glanced up.
“I begin to think we’ve got a chance,”
he said. “These chaps are amateurs.
The Invaders didn’t expect to fight.
They didn’t train for it.”
Again the rising whine of a plane div¬
ing for them. The two foremost now
roared on ahead. The third plane’s roar
grew more and more intense, until it
seemed almost upon them. Steve,
blanching, flung his head around to see
the big passenger ship no more than fifty
feet above the water and two hundred
feet behind. There was no possible
chance to dodge. He saw the pilot fling
his missile — a cylindrical thing with
something that smoked trailing out be¬
hind it. It struck the water no more
than ten yards ahead. Spray fell all over
the patrol boat.
“Dynamite,” said Steve. “No regular
bombs. Get Nick up with a rifle.
Quick! Then take the wheel!”
He zigzagged desperately. There
came another savage, rasping whine, as
another plane dived down to repeat the
tactics of its forerunner. From fifty
feet up, the patrol boat was a target that
simply had to be hit before long. Lucy
reappeared, breathless, as Steve was
about to abandon the wheel regardless.
He seized his rifle and shouted to
Nick; “The propeller! Smash it!”
NICK OPENED FIRE. Steve flung
bullets at the cobwebby disk before the
fuselage. There was a sudden shrill
squealing sound. Something went flying
away, shrieking. The unbalanced pro¬
peller set up a terrific vibration. The
plane shot past the patrol boat before
the pilot could even cut off his motor.
It struck the water with a terrific crash
— and instantly thereafter vanished in a
gigantic detonation. The explosion
wave made the patrol boat careen dan¬
gerously.
Yet another plane had essayed to dive,
but it leveled off. It climbed and
dropped a scattering handful of dyna¬
mite sticks from two hundred feet or
more. Some of them went off from the
impact when they hit the water. Others
vanished harmlessly.
“If one of them hits our deck, though,
it’ll go off!" said Steve grimly. He
called loudly above the dim of motors.
“Keep shooting, Nick! Keep ’em
aloft !”
The patrol boat sped on. The flight
of planes swept past, peppering the sea
about the fugitives with explosions, none
of which were comparable to an actual
aircraft bomb, but any of them certain
to do deadly damage to a craft as small
as this. It was easy enough to under¬
stand, of course. The Invaders had not
anticipated battle, but a raid. Nor com¬
bat, but looting.
Faced with an emergency and furious
orders from their surviving Leaders,
those who had gone to prepare for the
looting of Philadelphia had taken what
civilian planes their fliers knew how to
handle, had loaded easily discovered
dynamite in them, and taken off in a des¬
perate attempt to obey orders.
But their lack of practice in battle
tactics was apparent in the fact that,
having dived for and dropped bombs
about the patrol boat, the first ships
dared not swing sharply about to bomb
again. They feared to foul their fol¬
lowers. They sped on and went about
in a huge circle, their ragged formation
following them, and then swept across
above the patrol boat again.
Again there was a rain of death from
106
ASTOUNDING STORIES
the skies. Detonations and spitting
flames and columns of spume and spray
sprang into being all about the dodging,
darting small boat. Once a tall column
of water fell athwart its stern. But save
for a smashed hatch and some hundreds
of gallons of water admitted, there was
no damage.
Steve had steered erratically, as if
dodging without real purpose, but he
sped desperately for the cruiser as soon
as the second rain of bombs was over.
Nick coiled a rope, which he hastily
knotted to a small-boat grapnel.
They came alongside the cruiser just
as the squadron of planes made a ragged
turn. Nick heaved up the grapnel. In
seconds he was swarming frantically up
the line. In seconds more he was haul¬
ing away at Lucy, to help her up. And
then, just as Steve dragged himself to
the cruiser’s deck, the roar of motors
filled all the universe again with unbear¬
able sound. Dynamite exploded beside
a ventilator and shattered it.
A fair hit on the patrol boat blew off
its bow. It went down in seconds.
More dynamite ripped the cruiser’s deck
astern. Nick dived for a steel door.
Steve dived after him, while detona¬
tions and crashings resounded all about.
But a cruiser is not as easy to sink as
a patrol boat. One stick of dynamite
will tear up planks and dent mild steel.
But even a light cruiser requires more
than even a case of dynamite to produce
real damage.
THE THREE AMERICANS hunted
eagerly. They found the commander of
the cruiser. Steve swung down from
his back the high-frequency pack with
which he had first protected himself,
which bad wakened Nick when Fran
Dutt ruined Nick's own pack, and had
been used again by Steve when chang¬
ing his Invader’s armor to the outside
of his clothing for a disguise.
He put the pack on the naval officer
and turned on the switch. The little
tongue of metal began to vibrate. A tiny
blue spark flickered and danced. High-
frequency currents, which he could not
• even feel, coursed through the officer’s
body. And he awoke.
He had been in the act of drinking
his after-lunch cup of coffee when the
plague struck his ship. Now be swal¬
lowed automatically, stared at the three
weirdly armored figures who stood be¬
fore him — and then heard the crashings
and felt the shock of bombs falling on the
cruiser’s decks. He leaped to his feet.
Steve said sharply : “Commander,
your ship's being attacked by the chaps
who’re responsible for the plague you’ve
probably heard of. Your crew is under
its influence now, and you have been.
But if you’ll help us, Nick and I will
make an arc and get things going - ”
From a distance, the cruiser would
have seemed to be in a bad way during
the next quarter or half of an hour. It
floated aimlessly upon the water. Planes
darted about and above it, raining down
small black things which exploded upon
its decks and filled the air with flames
and smoke. It seemed as if the cruiser
were helpless.
But suddenly the war vessel awoke.
Its commander’s voice roared out of the
speakers which filled every deck and
compartment with sound. Order after
order issued from his lips. And, in the
navy men obey orders first and ask ques¬
tions afterward.
At one instant the ship was a helpless,
floating hulk with the reek of dynamite
about it. The next instant its cannon
moved. Men flung themselves across
its decks to anti-aircraft guns. And
suddenly it was spitting flames exclu¬
sively its own.
In three minutes its gunners brought
down two of the Invaders’ planes in
flames, disabled four others whose pilots
were able to land without crashing,
and a lucky shot hit the store of dyna¬
mite in the cockpit of another. It van¬
ished in a colossal sheet of flame which
THE INCREDIBLE INVASION
107
suddenly doubled when a second plane
shared its fate.
Three planes of the squadron turned
and fled for the distant shore. One of
those wavered in its flight, abruptly
turned over in mid-air, and then dived
straight into the waves. A bullet had
weakened some control wire to the
breaking point. Two planes, only,
reached land.
The crew of the cruiser could not live
beyond the steel hull of the ship, into
which high-frequency current was
poured by a giant arc. They could not
get to the small boats. The cruiser itself
— when steam was had again — swept
slowly up to the disabled, sinking planes.
Nick flung ropes to the pilots.
They came on board, clad in the armor
which had so astounded the cruiser com¬
mander, and with the stunned, broken
look of men who still cannot understand
their defeat. They were of the same
racial type as Fran and the biological
assistant at Columbia. The sailors of
the ship stripped off their armor and
enviously watched chosen men don it.
And then the cruiser headed for New
York harbor at full speed, while her
electricians worked feverishly.
SHE WAS seen approaching, a good
many hours later. Smoke pouring from
her funnels, white water hissing at her
bows, she came steaming in the Narrows
with a vengeful confidence. One great
bombing plane had been gotten aloft
from Governor’s Island. It circled, and
dived — and such a storm of anti-aircraft
fire poured upon it that it reeled drunk-
enly and went dizzily down with smoke
pouring from it.
Then there were monstrous detona¬
tions on shore. The forts at the Nar¬
rows were firing point-blank. But the
guns were not designed for such short-
range work, and their desperate, im¬
provised gun crews did not know their
work. The guns fired, at most, two
shots apiece. Not one was a hit. The
cruiser disdainfully refused to return
such fire. She swept on.
Up the East River. She came to a
stop opposite the great power house, and
small boats dropped from her sides.
There were at least two men in each,
in the scaly armor of the Invaders, but
in addition each boat carried contriv¬
ances built by the ship's electricians.
They were very simple — merely battery-
driven induction coils and spark-gap
contrivances. Flexible wires ran from
each of these devices to each man of
each landing party. They were clumsy.
They were very cumbersome. But ma¬
chine-gun fire spat out from the small
landing boats when rifles opened from
the shore. Nearer, one man stood up
in each boat and threw grenades. The
rifle fire from shore died, and scale-arm¬
ored figures fled.
The boats moored. Compact groups
of zestful fighters swept into action,
though hampered by the need to keep
close to the generators of high-frequency
current. They, though, were fighting
men, whose leaders had not the habit
of carrying whips nor the policy of
breaking spirits.
To the cracking of rifles, they went
into the power house. Tumultuous rifle
fire and the explosion of grenades kept
up for perhaps two minutes. From the
ship, now, other boats put off. Not to
reenforce the landing party, but racing
to the navy yard. Their crews, also,
landed. Carrying their portable genera¬
tors, they vanished into other naval
ships.
Then a strange quiet descended. The
two cities were utterly still and utterly
silent. The ships of the harbor were
grounded or sunk or still drifted help¬
lessly with the tides. The streets were
empty of all save stiffened, grotesquely
posed bodies. Not even rats scurried
about the sewers. Not even insects flew.
The only sign of life anywhere was
one light cruiser of the United States
navy, with smoke pouring from her fun-
108
ASTOUNDING STORIES
nels, her screw turning just enough to
hold her opposite the power house. The
power house itself trickled smoke from
one of its mighty stacks only. From
within it, at long intervals, came per¬
haps one shot, or two, or perhaps a
flurry of three or four.
Then, simultaneously, smoke came
from the balance of the giant stacks of
the power house. At first thin and
white, it thickened and became dense.
Then smoke arose from the funnels of
the frozen, immobile ships tied up at
the navy yard. Electricians were work¬
ing in the inward of those ships, while
other men got up steam — being careful
not to break free from flexible wires
which ran to each man of them.
ABRUPTLY, one of those moored
warships emitted an exultant bellow
from its whistle. Figures stirred upon
its decks. Some of them stared incredu¬
lously at the stillness of which they had
been a part until a few short seconds
before. A second vessel boomed
triumphantly, and signal flags fluttered
from its masts.
And then figures in scaly armor came
out of the power house — but the armor
was bloodstained, and gob hats still
served as headgear — and began to wig¬
wag to the belligerent cruiser.
With startling suddenness, there were
noises in the cities also. Bells clanked,
whistles shrilled and voices babbled
everywhere. The cities were alive again.
Because, with trained men to work, and
the problem outlined befose, the great
arc in the power house had been recon¬
stituted just as soon as the landing party
could clear the generator room and get
up steam in the extra boilers below.
That was not all that had to be done,
of course. There was more — much
more. Commandeered trucks, hastily
fitted with dynamo and a gasoline en¬
gine apiece, trundled across the bridges
with men in second-hand scaly armor on
each one. Those men wore the hats of
sailors or the uniform caps of marines,
and they were heavily and very effi¬
ciently armed.
They whooped derisively at each
other, and at certain bewildered civilians
who could not understand that they had
just been revived for the second time
by the arc in the great power house.
Those trucks separated and drove at
full speed for other power stations ; some
uptown and others in New Jersey. They
would build up arcs in each station after
zestfully demolishing any of the Invaders
who protested. They would then in¬
struct local electricians briefly and go
on to repeat the process farther away.
In six hours every city as far away
as Philadelphia would be again its nor¬
mal self. In twelve — with police and na¬
tional guard units taking over the task
and spreading the revival process in geo¬
metric progression — Washington would
come back to life. In twenty-four, even
Niagara Falls would again be awake and
its enormous water-power output of elec¬
tricity diverted from industrial use to
make impossible any recurrence of
plague.
But that last was a precaution. Long
before that time the menace of the In¬
vaders was over. Steve took measures
to bring that about almost at once. Be¬
cause, with Brooklyn awake, adequately
armed parties from the ships at the
navy yard had turned up at the power
house. Steve asked for them.
They came in a highly professional
manner, with strict discipline and their
commissioned officers in command. But
they marched through the streets and
saw some of the things that had come
of the Invaders’ hold upon the city.
They knew, too, how many cities had
been subject to the sudden, horrible
paralysis of all, save machinery, and the
results of that machinery running on un¬
guided. More, they knew of the loot¬
ing of the cities of women as well as of
goods.
THE INCREDIBLE INVASION
109
Steve had them drawn up before the
helix in the courtyard, with its flickering
bluish flame. He had refused to allow
the current to be turned off from that
helix. He had found from a position
facing its open end that the blue flames
seemed to coalesce and fill the whole
center of it. And the pictures on those
flames — which elsewhere were frag¬
mentary — combined together so that he
looked directly into the world which was
the Other Side of Here.
HE SAW, then, a scene very nearly
normal: green fields, clouds, sky, and
sunlight ; a long distance away, the for¬
bidding towers of some sort of strong¬
hold ; between that stronghold and the
opening of the helix there was a city
of sorts. Its streets were narrow and
its houses mean. But the stronghold
was vast and strong. And there was
fighting going on in that city. Men bat¬
tled with swords and spears, and other
men fought savagely with weapons
which were noiseless and unfamiliar. It
was a quaintly alien city, yet there were
motor trucks of utterly familiar mold,
and men using them as fighting ma¬
chines to charge other men.
But the fighting was less, now. It
seemed rather the cleaning-up process
after street fighting, when individuals
and groups of the defeated party made
their last stands as they were hunted
down.
Steve had watched for a long time.
And when there were many grim, armed
men drawn up before him he told them,
very briefly, all that he knew about the
Invaders and their world. He told them
that the helix was the entry way to that
world. And he asked for volunteers to
join him in seizing a foothold there, for
the avenging of the Invasion and to re¬
cover the loot and especially the women
who had been taken for the pleasure
of the Leaders of that alien race.
A sound like a roar answered the call
for volunteers. But, as extra ammuni¬
tion was being served out, machine guns
allotted, and swift and decisive prepara¬
tions made, in that other world men ad¬
vanced directly toward the mouth of the
helix. There were six of them, and
not one was un wounded. Fran Dutt
strode ahead. He walked up to the
helix, and into it, and came out of it
into the courtyard of the power house.
He faced Steve grimly.
“Steve,” he said, unsmiling, “we’ve
had our revolution. Thanks to you, per¬
haps. We’ve got this city — the one you
see — and we’ll get the others. I’m
speaking for the Revolutionary Com¬
mittee.”
“We’ve had,” said Steve dryly, “a few
doings in this world, too.”
“I know,” said Fran. “It scared our
Leaders and made our job easier. Now
— you’re getting ready to return the In¬
vasion. I’m here to make terms.
There’s no use fighting. What’s hap¬
pened wasn’t our fault, not the fault
of we Underones. It’s the fault of our
Leaders. We’ve started the job of kick¬
ing them out, and we’ll finish it. Let’s
make terms.”
Steve said quietly: “You’ve been in
our world enough to know I can’t as¬
sume authority to make terms, Fran.
But if your terms are fair, I’ll urge
them.”
Fran drew a deep breath.
“For peace, we offer to return all
that’s been looted or pay for it in gold.
We’ve plenty of that. We’ll pay as
well as we can for the damage done
to your cities. We offer the return of
all prisoners, of course. And we offer
to finish kicking out our Leaders and
then hold a plebiscite on asking for an¬
nexation to your country.”
Steve stared.
“We ask,” said Fran, “no punish¬
ment for Underones who did damage
while obeying the orders of Leaders.
You can have the Leaders to hang, if
you like. We don’t want them! And
110
ASTOUNDING STORIES
we ask for colonists. We’ve only half
a million human beings in our world,
and it’s as big as yours. We need
colonists to teach we Underones many
things — but especially to hate our Lead¬
ers as such men would be hated in your
world. We need them, and we’ll give
them land and welcome them, and we'll
learn never to cringe to any other liv¬
ing man - ”
He stopped, his eyes aflame. The five
men behind him nodded. One medita¬
tively tightened a bandage about his
arm. Blood was oozing from it. Al!
five nodded again.
“Fran,” said Steve soberly, “those
terms are all we could ask. But — for
guarantees - ”
“March your men through!” said
Fran Dutt fiercely. “We ask nothing
better ! They’ll encourage waverers to
believe in freedom, anyhow ! And you
tell them, Steve, to grin if they see any
one look scared or angry, and every¬
thing will be all right.”
There was a conference. So complete
and bloodless a victory seemed almost
suspicious to the naval officers. One
of them began to stipulate the number
of men and arms who could go through
to Fran’s world.
“Damn it !” cried Fran, “I’m asking
you to go through ! My people went
mad and fought to-day. But to-morrow
they might be frightened and cringe be¬
fore what Leaders survive, through pure
habit. I’m begging you to come
through, so my people will have the
courage to stay free forever ! We’ve
been slaves too long!”
IN TEN MINUTES there was the
steady tramping of men marching into
the helix which was the entrance to the
Other Side of Here. From one side
they could be seen to march into it —
and vanish. But from the end they
could be seen in that other world.
Fran turned suddenly to Steve.
“One question,” he said harshly.
“Lucy ?”
“She’s all right,” said Steve. “She’s
on the cruiser. She’s going to marry
me to-morrow.”
Fran had been pale. He went paler
yet.
“I thought so. Well — you’re decent,
in your way. I’ll go back to my world.
It’s a pretty good world, and it’s going
to be better. And this Invasion won’t
turn out to be such a bad thing for
your world or mine.” He started for
the helix. He stopped. “Lucy knows
I love her,” he said evenly. “Her fa¬
ther’s been sent for. He’ll be here in
an hour or so. Wish her happiness for
me. And I mean it !”
He did manage to smile. He walked
into the helix with half a company of
sailors. He vanished.
“And now, Nick,” said Steve with a
faint smile, “to get back to normal !”
It did not take long. Full realization
of the benefits that would come from
the doubling — later to be the multipli¬
cation by a much larger number than
two — or the space available for use by
the human race did not come for many
vears. But the affairs of the world
went back to normal in a surprisingly
short time.
In fact, only the next day the wed¬
ding of Steve Waldron and Lucy Blair
was interrupted by a conscientious bu¬
reau of health official who insisted that
there was a warrant for the arrest of
Steve which had never been quashed and
so had to be served. It seemed that
Steve was required to be arrested for
having violated the order of quarantine,
forbidding any person to come out of
the plague-stricken city of Newark.
THE END
The EXPEDITION
from KYTLM
by M. F. James
Beginning on July 1 7, 1947,
occurred a series of disasters and
catastrophes for which no plausi¬
ble explanation has yet been offered.
The trouble began when a gigantic
planet, fully the size of our Sun, ap¬
peared close to our solar system.
Where this intruder had come from,
and how and why are as much a mystery
now as then. The body shifted its posi¬
tion in a manner which was a direct vio¬
lation of celestial mechanics.
From this body a number of dark,
impenetrable shapes emerged and
hovered about the Sun, causing cata¬
clysmic weather disturbances on the
Earth. The shapes appeared near
Mercury next. This planet was blotted
from view for several weeks, causing
great concern and fear to every one.
Next the shapes were discovered
about Venus. They held that position
for three months, during which time the
planet was lost to sight.
Then they approached the Earth. A
terrible fear of the unknown caused
widespread panic and rioting among all
the peoples of the world. The vast
black shapes hovered in the ether on all
sides of our planet.
Then the terrible disasters began.
A great volume of the Atlantic Ocean
was seen to rise bodily out into space, the
work of some tremendous unknown
force. This disturbance of the natural
balance of the planet resulted in great
tidal waves and earthquakes all over the
globe. Millions perished, and whole is¬
lands sunk beneath the violent waves.
Then a school of whales sighted near
the Antarctic Ocean by a whaling ves¬
sel were observed rising into the air
and out into space at incredible speed.
Human beings began to disappear in
the same terrifying manner. Hundreds
of thousands of Negroes, Egyptians,
Arabs and white men from Africa were
the first to be taken. Then the cities
of Shanghai, Kyoto, Canton and Hong¬
kong were completely removed from
Earth in a few minutes.
The world was in a frenzy of fear. No
one could offer any reasonable explana¬
tion for these happenings. Was it war?
Was some alien planet endeavoring to
destroy the Earth? Was it a natural,
or unnatural phenomenon? No one
knows.
PERHAPS the greatest catastrophe
of all was the burning of New York.
A vast indistinguishable object or
mass descended over the city on a hot
spring day in 1948.
Before any of the millions of people
within its confines were aware of what
was about to befall them, the Sun’s rays,
tremendously concentrated by the thing
in space, shriveled the city to charred
destruction. Every one of its twelve
million citizens was reduced to a tiny
heap of ash.
Such an act of wanton barbaric fury
surely could not have been the work of
intelligent beings from out of interstellar
space.
The only explanation possible was that
112
ASTOUNDING STORIES
the Sun underwent a sudden, violent
change in its atomic structure.
The loss of several of our finest ocean
liners followed. No trace of them has
ever been found.
The last phenomenon, or deliberate
act, was the complete disappearance of
the planet Mars. In its place is a
strange new sphere, of unknown com¬
position. What brought about this
change will forever remain a mystery.
Since that period of horror in 1947-48,
no other like series of events has oc¬
curred. Scientists are still vainly at¬
tempting to discover the cause of the
catastrophes.
The best explanation would seem to
be that some unthinkable force in the
universe ran riot for a brief but destruc¬
tive period, upsetting the scheme of
things. There are many weaknesses to
this theory, but until a better one is ad¬
vanced, it must stand.
Let us hope that such a thing will
never again disturb our sphere.
PART II.
(A copy of the official report of the
activities of the First Inter-Universal
Expedition from Kytlm, under command
of Zustrll Ivarustl.)
Subject : Investigations of the third
planet of the miniature solar system
now designated as Emsda A 10.
I'pon arriving in the vicinity of solar
system Emsda A 10, we immediately
began preparations to examine the more
promising looking planetoids we ob¬
served.
The central Sun of this system is a
rather brilliant little star. Its size is
about the size of our ether ship. We
have made accurate estimates of both
its size and weight. These computa¬
tions, together with the other mathe¬
matical research records, may be found
in the special report prepared by our
head mathematician, Liomx Moktl.
The fairly high temperature of this
Sun was due, we discovered, to a con¬
tinual disintegration of its atoms. We
procured samples of the material of this
star for future study.
A careful scrutiny of its miniature
planets was begun in an effort to de¬
termine if life of any sort exists on them.
The planet nearest the Sun was so
tiny that we failed to see it until we
trained a radiation magnifier on the point
designated as its position by our mathe¬
matical-astronomy experts.
A subsequent examination of this
planet under a magnifier of considerable
power failed to reveal any signs of life.
The second little planet was hidden
by a film of haze. We found a rudi¬
mentary bacterial form of life here, but
nothing of particular interest.
The third planet, however, was well
worth a more extensive examination.
This body, about the size and- shape
of a marminnlberrv, was almost com¬
pletely covered by a compound which
we analyzed to be H«0, containing per¬
ceptible traces of sodium chloride.
Many forms of bacterial life were
found in this liquid. Some were of con¬
siderable size for their type. In fact the
largest of all bacteria we found on this
tiny body exists in the thin green liquid.
We have about a hundred specimens of
this life form, which we are preserving
for future study.
About a quarter of the area oi the
planet is composed of a dark-brown sub¬
stance somewhat akin to the inorganic-
organic soil of our own planet. It is
upon this soil that bacterial life has
reached its greatest development.
Here is an interesting point : the soil
areas are of various sizes, and separated
from each other by the liquid compound.
Upon each portion of soil we found a
quite different type of bacteria.
On a large mass located in the equa¬
torial lielt of the planet, we found the
bacteria to be almost entirely black in
color. A few colonies of brown and
THE EXPEDITION FROM KYTLM
113
Perhaps the greatest catastrophe of all was the burning of New York.
Every one of its twelve million citizens was reduced to a tiny heap of ash.
AST— 8
114
ASTOUNDING STORIES
occasional specimens of white were also
found.
On one, the largest of all the soil
areas, we found vast colonies of yellow¬
ish tinged bacteria. These are, by far, the
most prolific of all types. We have taken
several colonies of a few million or¬
ganisms each, which will be turned over
to the department of bacteriology for
study.
There are also a large number of
white-colored types. These are either
more highly organized or developed
than the other types, for they have far
better colonies.
A WORD about these colonies.
An average of about a million organ¬
isms form the largest. The bacteria are
constructing artificial hives or nests con¬
taining a great number of tiny cells or
compartments in which they live.
The most interesting of all colonies
is the one located on the edge of the
second-largest body of liquid. The
towers and pinnacles of the structures of
this colony rise to a surprising height
compared with the size of their builders.
In this particular colony we have meas¬
ured structures of this sort which were
fully two hundred times the height of
the inhabitants.
By the way, a most unfortunate acci¬
dent occurred to this same colony, due to
our own carelessness.
One of our bacteriologists was ex¬
amining the spot through a plane-focused
radiation magnifier. He held the in¬
strument fairly close to the globe in
order to get the maximum illumination.
The light rays from the little Sun were
accidentally concentrated onto the col¬
ony while the expert was engrossed in
his notes. As a result virtually all the
organisms were destroyed and most of
the artificial cellular structures charred
to ruins.
This was most unfortunate, as we had
counted on procuring the entire colony
in an effort to determine whether it
would thrive on our own planet.
We had the good fortune to notice
several large, rectangular objects float¬
ing on the surface of the liquid. A sort
of thin vapor was emerging from the
vents on their upper surfaces. At first
we believed them to be another form of
life. However, subsequent examination
revealed that they were in reality float¬
ing colonies of bacteria.
We have two specimens of this inter¬
esting type for further study, floating in
a small tank.
WE CONCLUDED our investiga¬
tions of Esmda A 10 with a brief survey
of several other tiny planets, one of which
we have taken from its orbit and re¬
placed with an artificial sphere of the
same size and shape, so as not to upset
the delicate balance of the system, since
we may desire to further study this tiny
solar system. We shall do some inter¬
esting experiments on the planet we re¬
moved, the fourth from the miniature
Sun.
In conclusion, I would like to men¬
tion a remark made by Fstiltm Strromkt
He suggested that the bacterial life
form of the third planet might be the
equivalent of human beings on that tiny
world. He even carried this idea so far
as to declare that they might have a
definite civilization of their own, which
we, being aliens, fail to understand.
These are interesting conjectures, but,
of course, not to be taken seriously.
Bacterial beings ! Obviously a ridicu¬
lous theory.
Signed,
ZUSTRLL KARUSTL.
■4th — Dimensional
P ossibilities
A scientific discussion
by Harry D. Parker, A.S.M.E., S.O.A.E., etc.
HOW MANY READERS of
fourth-dimensional stories have
ever looked up the subject in
a standard work of reference? Funk
& Wagnall’s “New Standard Diction¬
ary,” single volume edition of 1928
states :
Dimension : 1. Any measurable extent
or magnitude, as of a line, surface or
solid. ... 3. Physics : Any quantity,
as length, time, or mass. Fourth dimen¬
sion of space : A supposed or assumed
dimension whose relation to the recog¬
nized dimensions, length, breadth and
thickness, is analogous to that born by
any one of these to the other two.
Four-dimensional space may be re¬
garded as a hypothetical conception to
explain equations containing four vari¬
ables in analytical geometry or as an
entity beyond the limitations of ordinary
existence. The treatment of the fourth
and higher dimensions belongs to the
geometry of hyperspace or dimensional
geometry. The conception has been used
by some investigators to explain certain
superphysical phenomena which seems
otherwise inexplicable.
Obviously to recognize a dimension
one must at least see, feel or think it.
Sight is a form of perception. It is an
extension of our consciousness beyond
the limits of touch or taste that is more
susceptible of analysis than smell or
hearing.
In the usual concept of dimensions
length, breadth, thickness (line, surface,
solid) two well-known illustrations are
offered to bring the fourth within our
mental grasp.
1. Lines and right angles. Start
with a line, add another to it at right
angles. To measure the result you have
not the original length — we are, of
course, considering geometric straight
lines — but a two-dimensional thing hav¬
ing length plus breadth. Again add a
line at right angles to the other two
and you have converted the two-dimen¬
sional into a three-dimensional. Now
try to add another line at right angles
to the other three. If you succeed, you
have created a fourth-dimensional some¬
thing. Thus the tesseract no more
truly represents a fourth-dimensional
object than do atomic models represent
actual atoms.
2. Cross sections. This is much sim¬
pler than Method 1. It rests on the
mentally acceptable fact that the cross
section of anything will have, at the
point of the section, the next lower
dimension. Cut open any solid and the
line of the cut will be a plane. Cut
across any plane and the cross section,
is a line. Cut a line and the cross sec¬
tion is a non-existent point, or 0 dimen¬
sion.
From all this it is obvious by analogy
that all three-dimensional things (solids)
must now be cross sections of four¬
dimensional somethings.
This is where sight comes in ; for if all
solids are fourth-dimensional cross sec-
116
ASTOUNDING STORIES
tions, then we can now see all about
us slices of fourth-dimensional objects.
Carrying this thought along brings
the idea that a one-dimensional dweller
needs no eyes, for single directional per¬
ception certainly does not require sight.
And it is equally to be considered that
a fourth-dimensional dweller would re¬
quire three eyes to focus. (This seems
to check O. K., for we three-dimensional
dwellers have two normal eyes).
How about the conception that three
eyes are necessary to perceive fourth¬
dimensional matter. We ourselves can
see fourth-dimensional cross sections
with two eyes. (A one-eyed person
loses all sense of perspective, i. e., sees
in terms of planes.) In fact, we can,
in a way, see the fourth-dimension
solids — if the fourth dimension is dura¬
tion — by using our own third eye — that
mind’s eye which is so often dormant.
(Let’s go into this duration business a
little later).
WE ARE altogether too prone to con¬
sider a dimension as entirely a matter
of substance. As far as that goes, just
what is the first dimension? We are
taught that it is length. A geometric
point moved to generate a line. But
the fact that the length exists long
enough to be perceived adds duration.
It might be then that the first dimension
is existence at all. It certainly requires
time — duration. If that is the first di¬
mension, how about the other three?
And if we think far along that line
we come to wondering where to fit the
spatial next dimension — that right angle
to all planes of a cube. Perhaps that
is the fifth dimension.
Now if duration is a dimension, which
for this illustration we will call the
fourth, then to travel in the fourth di¬
mension means to travel in time ; i. e.,
to travel in time means reaching various
points of duration.
If time is analagous to a stream flow¬
ing at a specific rate, and we are limited
to that speed, how can we hope to travel
in time? The answer lies in the con¬
cept that time, as well as space, is curved,
and by taking a short cut we could,
within limitations, theoretically journey
in duration. Our path would be along
the cords to the time arcs.
Thus we would not need to go faster
than the rate of our own time flow;
simply progress along a shorter track
in either direction, to future, or past,
duration.
Speaking of speed, or velocity, the
speed of light is not the limiting factor
that it is assumed to be. This any one
can demonstrate for himself — for
thought is faster than light.
Think of Mars, or any distant planet
or star, and, mentally, you are there, in
a time quantity of a fraction of a second.
Can the speed of thought be measured
in terms of intergalatic distance?
Returning again to this matter of
duration — time. We three dimensional
(?) people only see time in cross sec¬
tions — another indication that it may be
the next dimension — an instant at a
time, in a steady series of progressive
slices. A fourth-dimensional dweller
would see all time up to his own pres¬
ent. If this idea is correct, what di¬
mensional vision is required to see the
future projection of duration also? Per¬
haps this is a fifth-dimensional function.
Suppose we could see duration. Any
of the three familiar dimensions can
become either of the other two by either
a change in the object’s or the viewer’s
position. Inversion by rotation. Does
this hold true of time — duration?
Shadows are projections of dimen¬
sions in either the same, or the lower
dimensions. A three-dimensional ob¬
ject casts a two-dimensional shadow
(cross section again), but a two-dimen¬
sional object may cast either a two- or
an O-dimensional shadow by being
rotated in relation to the point of light,
and a one-dimensional tiling can cast
4th-DIMENSI0NAL POSSIBILITIES
117
either a one-or an O-dimensional
shadow — again by rotation.
Why does not a three-dimensional ob¬
ject behave as do the other two? Ob¬
viously because we cannot rotate it
readily in the next spatial dimension.
If we could see duration as a whole
and not in slices (instant to instant)
and duration plus our familiar three
makes four, the sight of the fourth¬
dimensional objects would be beyond
our understanding, because of the seem¬
ing confusion and our own two-eyed
inability to interpret what we perceived.
For more than one solid can occupy
the same space — if separated by the
fourth dimension (if we consider time —
duration — to rank as the fourth in the
series). A moment’s reflection shows
that the past duration of, say, a solid,
has had existence ever since it became
a solid, and that this same past dura¬
tion still exists, since the solid under
consideration is still in existence. Again,
where is this past duration, and what
if we could see it?
AS AN EXERCISE in original
thinking try to vision some simple ob¬
ject as it is, plus as — and where — it
always has been since it was created.
Try to see the thing all at once, not as
a series of pictures.
Then let your mind toy with the con¬
ception of an entire universe.
In doing this it won't take very long
for you to realize that the duration di¬
mension of anything often extends be¬
yond the horizon from a given point,
or vanishes into the Earth, or extends
into the heavens. It may return within
the viewpoint of the observer, once or
many times. Upon such a return it
would not necessarily be identifiable as
part of the original — now existing — ob¬
ject.
All this is approximately counterpart
to a long wall, for example, entirely in¬
closing, let us say, a great forest in our
own three-dimensional existence. Com¬
ing up to and seeing such a wall for
the first time an observer could not
know whether the wall surrounded the
forest and returned to the starting point,
or simply extended in each direction be¬
yond his view, until he had followed its
entire circumference.
Again, if dimensions are time — dura¬
tion — and “Any measurable extent or
magnitude,” then electricity, gravity,
surface tension, space, etc., all become
dimensions, for they have extent and
magnitude.
Ordinary pictures are two-dimensional
representations of three-dimensional
views. In a way they are akin to shad¬
ows. It takes training to see a picture.
Three-dimensional views may be, in like
case, the next lower representation of
four-dimensional things which we are
not trained to see; or rather which we
see only as cross sections at the time
instant of the moment.
And if all three-dimensional objects
are duration cross sections of the next
dimension, then we must be ourselves
cross sections of something else. Is our
faint contact with our extradimensional
projection the thing we call “Con¬
science”? Or is that inborn certainty
found even in the most primitive that
we have a soul — only a stumbling
knowledge of that other, vaster and
more complex self of which we are cross
sections — just as our mirror in its turn
shows a two-dimensional reflection of
our three-dimensional bodies?
So comes the wondering if when we
die we cease in all dimensions, or only
in our own instant of duration.
Perhaps, as a plane rotated through
the third dimension throws an O-dimen-
sion shadow, we ourselves cease our
third-dimensional existence at the in¬
stant that our fourth-dimensional self
is rotated through the fifth, and higher
dimensions.
INFRA-UNIVERSE
Beginning a thought- stirring
two-part novel
JIM WENTWORTH lifted the old-
fashioned knocker, let it drop with
a resounding thud. Then he
waited, leaning against the newel post
that framed the door, and mopped his
brow. It was hot, as only a Maine sum¬
mer day can be, and he had trudged the
last weary miles from the railroad sta¬
tion. If he failed in this quest — he
grinned wryly — he’d have to walk all
the way back to New York. A well-
worn silver dime rattled lonesomely in
his pocket.
It took a long time for some one to
answer. Jim looked about him. The
house was as lonesome as his dime; a
long, one-story, rambling structure set
by itself at the edge of the pine wilder¬
ness, with a half mile of dirt road inter¬
posing itself between civilization in the
form of a concrete highway and its own
exclusiveness. A queer place for the
laboratory of a scientist like Matthew
Draper, Jim reflected ; but then Draper
had always been known to be somewhat
eccentric.
There was no stir of movement, how¬
ever ; and the windows were thick-shut¬
tered. He slammed the knocker again,
impatiently. The late-afternoon sun
swept over the broad fields like a gleam¬
ing sword, illuminated the upper win¬
dows of the Harbor House, a mile away.
Jim had passed it on his hike ; a fashion¬
able summer resort where the wealthy
idled and flirted desperately to avoid
boredom. He grimaced. It was dinner
hour. Over there they would be sitting
down to a host of courses, perfectly pre¬
pared, impeccably served, while he
hadn't eaten more than a sandwich since
noon. A sudden fear assailed him.
Suppose it had been a hoax; suppose
Matthew Draper was not -
The door creaked, opened slightly. A
girl peered warily through the crack.
“What do you want ?” she demanded.
There was a quaver in her voice, a cer¬
tain desperation.
Jim Wentworth had been trained to
detect such things. He wondered, bent
forward slightly to make out her fea¬
tures. But the shadows baffled him.
Aloud he said: “I came all the way
from New York to see Professor
Draper. He advertised for a scientific
assistant. I fill the bill, and— -I need the
job.” He grinned ingratiatingly, trying
to lure the girl out into the sun where
he could see if her face lived up to the
strange sense of strain in her voice.
She refused to be lured. Instead, the
thin opening narrowed even more.
“The position is — uh — filled,” she de¬
clared. “I’m sorry. You had better go.
There's a train from Sauk Corners at
7 :10.” She tried to shut the door, but
Jim was too quick for her. His foot
shot out, wedged itself into the crack.
“No, you don’t,” he said firmly. “I
didn't spend my last nest egg on a trip
to this neck of the woods for nothing.
The station agent at Sauk Comers told
me I was the only one to inquire the
way here to-day. And” — his eye swept
the rutted country road — “they’d have
to ask to find this God-forsaken place.”
His sinewy fingers gripped the door
edge. “You see, I used to know Pro¬
fessor Draper. I studied under him at
Tech some years ago. So I’d rather get
it direct from him.”
“Oh-h-h!” the girl quavered, thrust¬
ing her slight body against the door to
by NAT SCHACHNER
A mass clung to her
shoulders, was sink¬
ing swiftly out of
120
ASTOUNDING STORIES
hold it from intrusion. Then urgency
crept into her voice. “Please go away,
Mr. — uh - ”
“Wentworth! Jim Wentworth!” he
told her cheerfully.
“Please go away,” she repeated. “I
can’t explain, but it’s important.” She
fumbled a moment; then a small, slim
hand thrust out into the glare of the
sun. “Here’s money — for your fare,
your trouble. I’m sorry.”
Jim stared down at the proffered bills.
The hand that held them was trembling.
He shook his head, refused to withdraw
his foot. “No can do,” he submitted.
“You’re too anxious. I thought there
was something wrong when I read the
ad. Matthew Draper doesn’t have to ad¬
vertise for assistants. There are thou¬
sands of bright young physicists — and
old ones, too — that’d give anything to
work under him. Now, I’ve got to see
him.”
The girl tried vainly to close the door.
“Please believe me,” she implored.
“You must go away — at once. Don’t
you see — it’s for your own sake I’m
doing this. I - ” She bit her lip,
stopped — as if she had said too much.
“You interest me strangely,” Jim
murmured, and shoved suddenly.
The girl fell back with a startled little
cry ; the door swung open. Jim stepped
into a long, raftered reception room,
glanced swiftly around. There seemed
nothing wrong. It was comfortably
fitted with easy-chairs, reading lamps,
tables littered with the latest scientific
magazines, and scatter rugs.
Open bookshelves lined the walls,
crammed with an impressive array of
technical volumes. Among them were
a goodly number authored by Draper
himself. “The Higher Mathematics of
Space” was one; “An Inquiry into the
Gravitational Warp” was another. Jim
knew them all, knew of his old instruc¬
tor’s preoccupation with the abstruse
properties of space.
EVERYTHING seemed normal,
perfectly proper. Except, perhaps, that
the windows were tight-shuttered, and
the lamps that illumined the room
glowed with an eerie tinge of violet, as
if that end of the spectrum were being
favored against the normal yellows.
He took a deep breath. He had
braced himself against something — he
knew not quite what. Then he remem¬
bered the girl. He swung on her. She
faced him, fists tiny, quivering balls at
her sides. Her face was pale, her eyes
wide but steady. She was evidently
under a terrific inner strain. Jim made
a mental note to study that face more
thoroughly — later, when he had more
leisure. He was certain the study would
be rewarding — and pleasant. But just
now -
She came closer, taut, desperate. Her
voice was a whisper, as if she did not
wish to be overheard. “For the last
time,” she begged, “will you go — now,
before it may be too late! Trust me;
don’t ask for reasons.”
Her urgency, her obvious sincerity,
shook his resolution. Before he had
seen her full face, he had suspected foul
play. Now, that was impossible. But
there was mystery here — more! The
girl was quite evidently scared. He
couldn’t leave her alone. And where
was Draper?
He grinned tightly. “Sorry, miss,”
he answered slowly. “I trust you — that’s
why I’m staying. If you won’t tell me
what’s wrong, Draper will.”
“I am Draper,” some one said calmly.
“What can I tell you?”
The girl stiffened, moved quickly to
the nearest table, pretended to be ar¬
ranging the magazines. Over her shoul¬
der she cast Jim an appealing glance.
He understood, swung about to face the
man who had quietly entered the room
from the left. Through the open door
Jim could see a tremendous laboratory,
filling an entire wing of the structure.
Machinery hummed and glowed, and
INFRA-UNIVERSE
121
the pungent smell of ozone flooded the
reception room. Then the man had
closed the door behind him.
“If you are the Professor Matthew
Draper I used to know at Tech - ’’
Jim started. "But of course you are.
I’m Jim Wentworth ; took several
courses with you back in 1926. Have
knocked about a bit since; ran a rail¬
road through an African jungle, got
blown up in a rocket-fuel experiment,
helped stage a revolution in China
against the Japs, did some research
under Bentley in California.” He went
on soberly, “Poor Bentley died ; there
was a depression ; the colleges spewed
forth thousands of keen young grad¬
uates willing to work for nothing; and
I’m on my uppers. I saw your ad — I
still remember your space-dynamic
theory — and I came.”
There was a perceptible, embarrassing
pause. Keen, gray eyes seemed to pierce
Jim through and through, to penetrate
into the innermost recesses of his soul.
The girl shifted uneasily at her pre¬
tended work.
Then, finally, the man said : “Ah, yes,
of course. Wentworth ! I remember
you now. A brilliant student, one of
the few who could really understand my
theory. Glad to see you again.” But
his hand did not go out ; and his eyes
probed more keenly than ever.
JIM steeled himself with an effort.
There was something wrong. He recog¬
nized Draper, of course. A little older,
a little more gray at the temples, but
that was due to the lapse of years.
There was no mistaking the well-set,
muscular frame, a little above the aver¬
age height, the firm jaw, the bushy,
overhanging eyebrows, the quick, pierc¬
ing gaze.
But Jim had an odd feeling of dis¬
comfort. His old professor had hesi¬
tated in recognizing him — and it was a
sincere hiatus, too, as if he had to call
into play an outside memory, a memory
that was not exactly indigenous to him.
Draper had been famous for his phe¬
nomenal, instantaneous memory. He
had been known to stop a total stranger
in the street, demand of him whether or
not he had on such and such a day, years
before, been in Boston, walking on such
and such a street at a specified hour.
And been exactly right, too, though the
startled accosted one had lost all recol¬
lection.
There were other things as well. The
voice, for example. Draper’s, all right,
but with a queer intonation, a certain
foreign preciseness, as if Draper were
making a conscious effort to speak in a
fashion that had once been easy and
natural for him, but was no longer. In
all his bearing, his manner, there was
that sense of subtle duality, of alien¬
ness, of a deliberate willing to be what
should have required no strain at all.
Jim held his features blank and com¬
posed, to betray to that searching scru¬
tiny no trace of his inner unease. After
all, he was thinking insane thoughts.
Before him, without the shadow of a
doubt, stood Professor Matthew Draper
famous physicist, and propounder of
startlingly novel theories on space.
“You'll do,” said Draper suddenly.
“Miss Gray will show you your room.
You can wash, arrange things. We eat
in half an hour. Then we’ll get to
work at once.” A strange intensity
crept into his voice. “There’s no time
to be lost. I must hurry. Every mo¬
ment is precious.”
With a little laugh he recovered him¬
self, said more easily. "But let’s not
talk shop until we enter the lab. In the
meantime let me introduce Claire Gray,
my very faithful secretary. Been with
me for years. Remained even when my
assistants quit. I commend her to you
for loyalty — uh — Jim.” Then he was
gone, back through the door to the left.
The girl stared at the new assistant
with frightened eyes. Her finger crept
to her lip, for silence. “This way, Mr.
122
ASTOUNDING STORIES
Wentworth,” she said aloud in prim,
businesslike tones. He followed her,
toward the right, into the other wing of
the sprawling building. No words
passed until they came to the room at
the farther end.
It was simple, but adequate: a four-
poster bed, a lowboy, several straight-
backed chairs, a washstand. Jim
dropped his battered bag on the floor,
looked at the girl quizzically.
She had shut the door tight, backed
against it with pressing hands. Her
face was pale, her voice a panting whis¬
per. “There is still time to go, Jim
Wentworth,” she said breathlessly. “Be¬
fore dinner. There’s an exit through
this wing. He won’t see you. If you
hurry, you can catch the 7 : 10 at Sauk
Corners.” Her fright was deadfully
sincere.
“Why should I go, Claire Gray?” Jim
demanded gravely. “I need the job,
and Draper’s the best man in the world
to work under.”
“You fool !” she cried desperately.
“Are you blind? Didn’t you see with
your own eyes? You knew Matthew
Draper back in Tech. Why do you
think his assistants left him last week,
secretly, at night? Ran away, that’s
what they did, swearing they wouldn’t
stay in this place another minute. And
they’d been with him almost as long as
I have.”
“You didn't go,” Jim pointed out,
evading the questions. He wanted time
to think, to piece out the puzzle himself.
He was almost afraid of what the girl
might say next.
“I ?” She stammered and flushed. “I
— I couldn’t. They begged me to go
with them.” She raised her head sud¬
denly. “Professor Draper’s been like
a father to me — my own parents are dead
— and I couldn’t leave him — in this con¬
dition. But you — you’re not bound.
Didn’t you see? Didn’t you notice?
Hasn’t he changed since Tech?”
“We all change with the course of
years,” Jim again evaded.
“Not that way,” she declared. “And
the change was sudden, instantaneous.
Three weeks ago, in fact. He — he’s a
different man.”
“He looks the same.”
“It isn’t that,” she whispered. “The
shell is Draper, the Matthew Draper we
all knew. But inside there’s something
else, something alien, foreign. Some¬
thing that peeps out at me inquiringly,
scares me. I can’t quite explain it. It’s
as if Matthew Draper had been sub¬
merged, and an alien entity had taken
possession of his body.”
“That’s impossible,” Jim said loudly.
He was arguing against his own instincts
as well as with the girl. “Rubbish!
Nonsense! He remembered me. I’ll
bet if I asked him about little incidents
at Tech he’d remember them, too.”
“Of course,” retorted Claire. “That’s
what makes it all the more frightening.
But he’ll remember them with an effort,
willing himself to remember, as if he
were doing so through an alien medium
— a personality not his own. Broderick
and Hanson noticed that at once — in
the laboratory. There was an incom¬
plete experiment. Oh, he finished it all
right, but unenthusiastically, groping his
way. And the solution was a queer
one, along lines radically different from
the way it had started.
“Then he threw everything aside, all
the work that had absorbed him before
the — the change. He started a new ex¬
periment with feverish haste, ordered
materials by the carload, worked night
and day, drove them with a dreadful in¬
tensity, as if every second counted — al¬
most as if - ”
“It was queer, they told me — that ex¬
periment. the machines he was building.
Something not quite of this world ;
something outside all our concepts.
They didn’t understand what they were
doing, and he refused to explain. You
INFRA-UNIVERSE
remember the old Draper — how clear,
how lucid his explanations were.”
Jim nodded.
THE GIRL went on, with a rush of
words. “The experiment scared them.
So did Draper. There were times when
he did not think they were looking, and
his features relaxed, as if he had been
keeping a pose for their benefit. I — I’ve
had that experience, too.” She shiv¬
ered. “It’s dreadful — that look — a peep
into a strange universe, at something not
— not human ! They couldn’t stand it any
more, and they went. They said this
experiment might lead to God knew
what consequences, and they wanted to
be far away when it happened. That’s
why you must go, too — now.”
“You’re staying,” Jim said very
gently.
“I — I told you why,” she declared
defiantly.
“Then so will I.”
“O-oh!” There was a perceptible
pause. Then, “I didn’t tell you every¬
thing,” she said quietly. “Three weeks
ago a man came here. He appeared to be
a farmer — the average type — wind-
tanned, face coarse-stubbled, rough¬
handed. But there was a certain in¬
tensity in his eyes. He demanded to see
Professor Draper. I tried to ask him
his business, but he pushed past me,
into the lab. I heard a click, as if the
door had locked. Then Draper’s voice,
surprised, inquiring — and silence. I was
alone in the place. It was Betsy’s day
off, and Broderick and Hanson were at
Sauk Corners, awaiting a shipment of
supplies.”
Her eyes held a far-off look. “I be¬
came afraid of the continued silence,”
she proceeded. “I knocked on the door.
No answer. I knocked louder. There
seemed a strange, slithering movement,
as of something crawling, inching its
way along the floor. I must have
screamed. I know I started for the tele¬
phone, to get help. Then the door flung
123
open, and the farmer came out. Be¬
hind him stood Draper.
“But even in the flood of my relief,
I noticed at once the strange difference
in them both. The intensity was gone
from the intruder’s eyes; he seemed
bewildered, staggering. He looked
around the room as if he had never
seen it before, as if he didn’t know how
he came to be here. He muttered
thickly, and fled out of the door. He
was scared. And Matthew Draper —
well — he was as you’ve just seen him —
something alien, distinct. There was a
triumphant look to him that was quickly
veiled when he saw me. He stared at
me — strangely ; it seemed to me he was
trying to place me, to remember me.
Then he went back to the lab, shut the
door. I never dared question him since.
But” — and now Jim had to strain to
hear her whispered words — “when I en¬
tered the lab a little later I saw some¬
thing. A slimy trail across the floor,
as though something damp and snail-
like had crawled there.”
She stopped. Jim’s scalp prickled.
Then he laughed. “You’ve let your
imagination run away with you, Claire
Gray. You’ve built up for yourself a
horrible picture out of the flimsiest
materials. The farmer had merely
come with a message ; perhaps he was
a little drunk. Certainly Draper has a
right to halt a line of experiments and
start a new one. That may explain his
change, his seeming preoccupation. He’s
hot on the trail of something. Such in¬
tensity of absorption changes a man,
makes him absent-minded, causes mem¬
ory to be something of an effort. He’ll
be himself as soon as he finishes.”
He talked confidently, trying to con¬
vince himself as well as the girl. And
failed in both instances. She looked
at him quietly a moment, said in matter-
of-fact tones, “The dining room is just
off the entrance hall, on this side. Din¬
ner will be served in fifteen minutes.”
Then she was gone.
124
ASTOUNDING STORIES
THE MEAL passed without incident.
There was only Draper, the girl and
himself. The housekeeper, a fat, com¬
fortable-looking native of the neighbor¬
hood, served with wholesome Maine
heartiness, if not with effortless effi¬
ciency.
Matthew Draper did not seem dis¬
posed to talk much. He ate hurriedly,
gulping his food, as if anxious to be
done. Jim, alert for little things, no¬
ticed that he held his knife and fork a
bit awkwardly, as if not quite accus¬
tomed to their use. The girl kept her
eyes intent on her plate. She looked
pale, weary. She did not speak.
Jim was forced to keep the conversa¬
tional ball rolling. He did it with de¬
liberate skill. He interspersed a casual
flow of talk with even more casual refer¬
ences to Tech, little incidents of years
before.
Every one of them was answered
properly — by Draper. This in itself
was strange. In ordinary talk a good
many allusions to the past are permitted
to drop without further remark. Not
so here. To Jim it seemed as if, behind
the hurried mask of his old professor,
there was a desperate alertness, a wari¬
ness, an eagerness to allay suspicion.
Yet always there was that gap, that
pause, that obvious willing himself into,
the memory of the incidents. And al¬
ways that strange impatience to be
through, as though every moment were
a precious part of eternity that was
needlessly slipping through his fingers.
It was with audible relief that Draper
pushed his chair back to announce the
end of the meal. “That’s that, Jim,”
he declared. “Sorry to rush you so,
but we’ll have to work a bit in the
laboratory. I’ve got to finish what I’m
doing as soon as possible. I must hurry.
Hurry!" He seemed to forget their
presence. “They can’t wait much
longer.” He was speaking to himself.
Claire flashed the new assistant a
stalled glance, looked away again. But
Jim said cheerfully, “That’s O. K. with
me. I don’t mind working nights.”
The scientist jerked his head up.
There was gratitude in his eyes.
“Thanks!” he muttered. “Those fools,
Broderick and Hanson, left me in a
lurch, brought everything to the verge
of ruin. But then, how could they
know what they did ?”
JIM had never seen quite such an
array of apparatus in a private labora¬
tory before. There were dynamos for
the generation of current, Diesel en¬
gines, huge electronic tubes, cloud
chambers for the study of disrupted
atom tracks, electrostatic globes, great
bar magnets, a high-temperature elec¬
tric furnace for refractory metals, a
mass spectrograph, an interferometer,
and a profusion of other instruments,
some of which Jim, for all his training,
did not recognize. It took his breath
away.
“Good Lord!” he said involuntarily.
“They represent a fortune. I didn’t
know - ” He stopped in embarrass¬
ment.
Draper smiled queerly. “You didn’t
know I was that wealthy, eh, Jim? I’m
not. But the name of Matthew Draper
is rather well-known; and my credit is
good.” He chuckled and added, “Espe¬
cially when no one firm shipped more
than a small part of the whole.”
That startled Jim ; then he forgot the
strangeness of the statement in wonder
at the apparatus that held the place of
honor in the very center of the lab.
Whereas every other available inch of
space was crowded with instruments, the
central portion was scrupulously bare
except for this.
A huge, hollow cylinder of gleaming
crystal rested solidly on a metallic base.
It appeared some eight feet high and
five feet in diameter, sufficient, thought
Jim incongruously, to house a man com¬
fortably. Fine metallic wire, spaced an
inch apart, ran spirally around the trans-
INFRA-UNIVERSE
125
parent circumference, darted upward
toward the roof of the lab, pierced
through; and, at the bottom, embedded
itself in the base of the metal block.
Enringing the cylinder were machines
of intricate design. Jim had never seen
their like before. Giant metallic
mouths, their orifices swirling in queer,
distorted curves, making a wavy pattern
of gaping wideness toward the central
transparency. Like prehistoric mon¬
sters, ready to spew forth flaming vibra¬
tions at the word of command.
“Good heavens!” Jim ejaculated.
“What are those?”
Draper avoided his gaze. “Oh, they !”
he muttered vaguely. “Part of the ex¬
periment. But come,” he added quickly ;
“we have no time to lose. Must get to
work. Please hook up those tubes in
series with the cloud chamber. It’s
already prepared. Use soft X rays,
helium, and argon. Shoot them through
to get a constant stream of electrons.
You know the technique, of course?”
Jim nodded, asked dryly, “For what
purpose ?”
“Set up your magnets to deflect the
stream,” Draper went on, unheeding.
“That is, I want you to see what hap¬
pens ; take pictures. Hurry, please !”
Jim Wentworth stiffened, was going
to retort angrily. This was not the
leisurely, meticulous attitude of the
Draper of old, the careful explanation
of details, of ultimate purposes. Ob¬
viously, the scientist was reluctant to
disclose what he was about, was labor¬
ing himself under a terrific urgency.
Jim could see it in every move he made,
in the feverish rush from instrument to
instrument.
Then Jim relaxed, grinned. Very
well, if old Draper wanted him merely
as a technician, let it go. But to him¬
self he determined to keep his eyes open,
senses alert. He’d solve before long
both the mystery of the machines and of
Draper himself.
THE ELECTRONS broke off from
the parent atoms, hurtled across the
cloud chamber, made bright lines
through the fog molecules, were de¬
flected by the magnets. Everything was
normal, usual. lie so reported to
Draper.
The scientist jerked erect from the
ring of metal monsters, groaned. He
was suddenly gray and haggard. "More
time lost,” he mumbled. "I’ve got to
get back, before it’s too late. Try
again,” he screeched suddenly at Jim.
“Step up the current to fifty thousand
amperes ; pass it first through the Agrav
- ” He pointed to the first of the
queerly shaped enringing machines.
“But be careful not to get in front of
the orifice.”
“What did you call it?” demanded
Jim.
“Oh!” Draper seemed confused.
“Just a name I gave it. Now hurry,
hurry !”
But when, at three in the morning,
the cloud chamber sizzled with streak¬
ing electrons, the picture was still nor¬
mal, just as it should have been. Re¬
luctantly, Draper called a halt ; grim,
despairing. He said good night with
a feeble attempt at cordiality, saw Jim
out of the laboratory, then closed and
locked the door.
The young man was drunk with fa¬
tigue. Nevertheless, he stood outside the
door, listening. He heard movements
within, apparatus being shifted. Draper
was continuing on his own. Evidently
he did not intend to sleep. Puzzled,
Jim went slowly to his room. So pre¬
occupied was he with his thoughts that
he almost jumped at the wraithlike fig¬
ure that loomed up at him in the dark,
in front of his door.
“I simply had to see you again,” said
a girl’s voice. It was Claire. Without
a word, Jim opened his door, switched
on the light, closed it behind the girl.
She was paler even than before. She
126
ASTOUNDING STORIES
had not slept. “Yes?” he said inquir¬
ingly.
“Did you — did you find out what he
was doing?” she demanded hurriedly.
For the moment he was angry. What
the devil did she mean by pumping him ?
If Draper wanted his experiment held
a secret, it was not her business. Good
Lord! Was she a spy for some rival,
interested in what Draper was up to?
Were there commercial possibilities in
whatever it was? Then he grinned.
She was too desperately sincere to be
that.
“Not a thing,” he declared cheerfully.
“The old fellow wouldn’t talk. And
what I did was routine stuff.”
She nodded. “Just as I thought.
The others said the same. But those
horrible machines. They give me the
creeps.” She gripped his arm sud¬
denly. There was amazing strength in
her slim fingers. “And Draper him¬
self. I’m afraid — call it a woman’s
foolish intuition, if you will — but I’m
afraid that something is going to happen
soon that will mean disaster to us all —
to you, to me, to the whole world, per¬
haps.”
“Nonsense !” He placed his hand on
her shoulder gently. She was not the
hysterical type, but she was trembling.
“It’s been lonely here, and you’ve been
brooding a lot of little things, magni¬
fying them.” He laughed shortly. “If
it’ll comfort you, I have a very efficient
little automatic in my pocket. I always
carry it.”
“Guns won’t help,” she retorted.
“But — good night.”
FOR A WEEK nothing happened —
that is, on the surface. Claire said noth¬
ing more to the new assistant of her
strange fears. Meals were served on
time; Betsy, the housekeeper, waddled
back and forth, keeping up a good-nat¬
ured, interminable stream of meaning¬
less conversation. The atmosphere of
the place did not seem to affect her in
the slightest. But then, nothing ex¬
ternal ever ruffles your true down-
Easter.
All day, and most of each night, Jim
was in the laboratory. His work
branched out. He made new alloys in
the electric furnace, of materials fur¬
nished by Draper. There were curious,
unusual combinations. Some of the
products, to Jim’s eye, possessed quali¬
ties that would mean millions commer¬
cially.
But Draper, seemingly, was not inter¬
ested in that phase of it. He threw
them into the discard impatiently, tried
new fusions. He was searching for
something definite. But invariably,
four times a day, Draper would hand
him samples of materials that had been
breathed forth from the maw of the
metal enringing monsters he had named
Agravs, for disruption in the cloud
chambers. And each time, as Jim, with
growing puzzlement, reported nothing
untoward in the reactions, new lines
etched themselves into the scientist’s
haggard countenance.
He seemingly never slept. Long after
Jim was reluctantly released from duty,
in the early hours of the morning, he
could hear the whine of the motors in
the laboratory. Once he caught a new
note; a sibilant, hissing noise, muted
by the intervening barriers. Like the
hiss of an angry snake. But it held in¬
flections, curious seesaw intonations, as
if it were a coherent language of sorts.
A strange reluctance withheld Jim
from flinging open the door and dis¬
covering the source of the sound. He
went to bed, troubled, grim of face. His
sleep was disturbed. He tossed in a
welter of strange dreams, in which Mat¬
thew Draper appeared in Proteuslike
transformations.
As the second week grew and waned,
a curious bond arose between the scien¬
tist and his assistant. The initial sense
of distrust gradually wore off. It could
hardly have been called liking, or affec-
INFRA-UNIVERSE
127
tion; on both sides there was a realiza¬
tion of alienness. But there was a cer¬
tain respect, an awareness of each oth¬
er’s attainments. Jim did his work
doggedly, efficiently, unobtrusively giv¬
ing valuable suggestions.
Still Draper did not take him into
his confidence, or disclose the secret
of the Agravs. Nor did Jim attempt
any underhanded spying, . though his
brain worked furiously all day in the
attempt to solve the mystery. For he
was well aware by now, and Draper
knew that he was aware, that some alien
entity was inhabiting the body of his
old professor, and possessing, besides
the brilliance and knowledge of the
savant, an additional fund of incredible
extent. Knowledge that had not
hitherto existed on Earth, that in the
main did not seem to fit Earth condi¬
tions.
It was this that evidently delayed
Draper, or the thing that appeared to
be Draper. The correlation and the
transference of a body of outside funda¬
mentals to the laws and materials that
governed Earth. Jim was able to help
here, and Draper appeared duly grate¬
ful.
IT HAD early been forced upon Jim
that the experiment had something to
do with the properties of space — in fact,
an attempt to modify those properties
in some unknown fashion. Which was
but natural, considering that Draper had
been the foremost authority in the world
on space and gravitational influences.
A dim light flickered in Jim’s brain
at that. Could it have been possible that
this entity or personality which was
now Draper had deliberately penetrated,
in some unknown manner, into the form
of the scientist in order to avail itself
of that authoritative knowledge and per¬
spicacity? Was it, in fact, that rough
farmer intruder of whom Claire had'
spoken? If so, what had happened to
Draper? How account for Draper's
complete knowledge of his past, of his
former associations? What was the
purpose of this experiment? Why the
dreadful haste? He was obviously
racing against some contingent tragic
denouement. What was it? Would it
involve Draper only, or Jim and Claire
as well, or the entire world, as the girl
intuitively feared? Questions that trou¬
bled Jim through the tossing hours of
supposed sleep, and during the furious
energy of the lab.
Claire and Jim made it a nightly prac¬
tice to compare notes in the privacy of
the right wing, before going to sleep.
Another bond was springing up between
them — unawares — but very much of this
Earth. Jim no longer scoffed at her
intuitions. He, also, was afraid, now.
Not for himself, nor, for that matter, of
the thing that was Draper. “Whatever
he is,” he told the girl, “he means us
no personal harm. Nor the world,
either. His is a tremendous brain, far
beyond that even of the old Draper. It
frightens me; it’s so — un-Earthly.
That’s the only word I can use to de¬
scribe it.”
“Do you think,” whispered Claire, “he
might be a being from Mars, or Venus,
who somehow managed to span the gulf
and fused himself into Draper’s body?
Perhaps he’s now trying to find a way
to get back — the door by which he came
had somehow closed in the interim.”
Woman’s intuition, sixth sense, what¬
ever it may be called! But even she,
with all her swift imaginings, could not
encompass the entire, incredible truth,
the utter incomprehensibility of Draper !
Jim laughed a bit at that. He was
too practical, too much of the engineer,
to go off into such wild fantasies. “The
chances are,” he declared, “the explana¬
tion, when it comes, will be much sim¬
pler, and more within the bounds of rea¬
son. What it will be, I don’t pretend
to know. We can only wait and see ”
They did not have to wait long. The
denouement came with stunning, un-
128
ASTOUNDING STORIES
believable force. On the Monday of
the third week Jim was staring aghast
at the cloud chamber, scene of familiar
daily routine. Something new had hap¬
pened, so novel that he could only stare
and rub his eyes in wonderment.
The familiar electron tracks no longer
bent to the influence of the magnets.
Instead, the bright sparkles flashed
straight and undeviating across the fog,
unheeding of the magnetic pull, to a
point almost midway between the
plates. Then something else happened.
The tracks stopped dead! It was not
merely that they collided with some
interior substance — that would have
been evidenced by a scattering of light,
or a sharp-angled divergence of the
path ; they literally disappeared, van¬
ished ! The electrons had ceased to
exist !
Jim frowned, glanced surreptitiously
back at Draper. The scientist was busy
with the adjustments of the spectro¬
graph in the rear; he had not seen the
untoward phenomenon.
Jim’s brain raced feverishly. Wherein
had this particular emission of electrons
differed from all the other batches ? For
one thing, the current had been stepped
up another notch; and, for the first
time, had passed through the interior
maws of the strange Agrav machines in
a certain complicated crisscross of alter¬
nations, whose pattern he had tried to
puzzle out mathematically in the privacy
of his own room the night before, when
Draper had first suggested it.
The mathematics had been incredible ;
he had been certain there were errors in
his calculations, and had fallen into bed
too tired to check his figures. Now, it
struck him with blinding realization,
perhaps he had been right. There had
been exponentials of the tenth order in
the resultant equations. T cn dimensions,
when the universe of known things was
limited, even in the relativity equations,
to four!
HE CHECKED HIMSELF firmly.
He had a simple observational fact to
report. That the electron emissions had
not bent to magnetic stresses, and that
they had disappeared at a given point.
Never mind the theories. That would
come later. As a loyal assistant, it was
his duty to report at once.
But still he hesitated. There was no
doubt in his mind that this was the phe¬
nomenon for which Draper had been
waiting so feverishly. W hat, then, ivould
happen next t Would he, Jim Went¬
worth, be the unwitting means of releas¬
ing some unknown, horrible doom upon
them all? Matter had not yielded to
normal, this-uni verse influences. It had
vanished, suddenly, completely, dropped
into some hole of which he had no pres¬
ent knowledge. What would it mean
if this experiment could be universal¬
ized? What did Matthew Draper — or
the being who seemed Draper — intend
to do with this weapon?
He took a deep breath, walked steadily
over to the still-bending scientist. “I
think I have the result you've been look¬
ing for,” he stated quietly.
Draper whirled. Flame sprang into
his eyes, and died. “Meaning - ”
Jim explained rapidly, went over the
procedure from beginning to end. Then
he exhibited the photographic plates to
substantiate his eyewitness account.
“I’ve checked for every other possi¬
bility,” he concluded, “and eliminated
them. There’s only one conclusion to
be drawn. You have managed to divest
electrons, at least, from the ordinary
attributes of matter. More, you have
annihilated matter without any corre¬
sponding manifestations of energy. It’s
a great discovery, one that will set the
scientific world on its collective ear.”
But Matthew Draper was paying no
attention. His face was a stony mask,
his body a graven image. But out of
his eyes peeped a fierce, unhuman
exultation, a flame that seared and
burned.
INFRA-UNIVERSE
129
“Thank you, Jim Wentworth,” he said
slowly. “You possess brains beyond
most of your kind, and you have been
— loyal, asking no questions, even when
you suspected. I shall remember that.
Now I ask you to leave me; there is
much I must do alone. I shall expect
you back at four in the afternoon. Not
earlier, not later.”
Before Jim knew quite what had hap¬
pened, he was out in the reception room,
and the strong lock to the laboratory
had clicked irrevocably behind him.
Claire looked up from her work, star¬
tled. She had been answering polite,
dunning notes, all of the same tenor:
No doubt Professor Matthew Draper
had overlooked, in the pressure of his
work, their little bill for apparatus and
supplies of the instant. Would he favor
them with a remittance at his earliest
convenience ?
The bills ran to staggering totals. To
each Claire sent an identical answer —
that Professor Draper was away for a
week : that on his return he would, with¬
out fail, forward the necessary check.
She rose quickly, anxious, over¬
wrought. “What has happened?” she
exclaimed, with an apprehensive look at
the locked laboratory.
Jim grinned tiredly. “Nothing much,
except that I’ve found for Draper what¬
ever it was he was looking for.” And
for the second time that crucial morn¬
ing he explained. “There is no doubt,”
he finished, “that the man we knew as
Draper harbors an another-world entity.
He let it slip out of the bag when he
thanked me for — er — well, never mind.
But he classed all of us together as your
kind, thereby differentiating himself
from the rest of humanity. Now the
question is — what is he up to?”
Claire clung suddenly to him. “I’m
afraid,” she whispered. “Poor Draper,
who had been a father to me — is dead.
That which is walking around in his
shape is the murderer, an alien being.
God knows what else he is planning.”
AST— 9
She moved away suddenly, confused.
“Perhaps we’d better get help — the State
police — before he does something terri¬
ble.”
Jim shook his head decisively. “No,
that won’t do. Whoever he is, I’m sure
he doesn’t intend to do any harm. Per¬
haps you were right, though, in the be¬
ginning. He was trying to find a way
to get back to wherever he came from.
Mars, Venus, perhaps. He’s discovered
it. It wouldn’t be right for us to stop
him.”
“But the Matthew Draper that was !"
Claire exclaimed desperately. “What
about him?”
Jim frowned, grew grim. “Pve
thought of that,” he admitted. “We
must do something to restore him to his
former status, if it’s at all possible. But
a lot of blundering police wouldn’t help ;
they’d only make matters worse. Leave
it to me.”
THE HOURS dragged on leaden
feet. At lunch Draper did not show up.
The eastern wing of the house vibrated
with the pounding of heavy machines,
with the whine of the dynamos. The
acrid taint of ozone permeated the entire
structure. Evidently Draper was build¬
ing up tremendous power. The meal
passed in silence.
When Betsy cleared away the last
dishes, she announced that she was
going to Sauk Comers. The professor
had told her to take the rest of the day
off. “And if you ask me,” she added
significantly, “I don’t know as I’ll be
cornin’ back. I kinda didn’t care for
the way the perfessor looked when he
sneaked over to the kitchen to tell me.
He ’peared a bit — well — teched in the
head. I’d advise you to clear out, too,
dearie,” she addressed Claire. “This
ain’t no place for decent folk.” And
she flounced out.
Claire and Jim exchanged glances.
“I — I think old Betsy is right,” the girl
said breathlessly. “There’s still a
130
ASTOUNDING STORIES
chance, Jim. Let’s get to the Harbor
House. It’s only a mile or so. There’s
a State trooper always on the grounds.”
“No,” Jim repeated grimly. “But you
ought to go with Betsy,” he added.
"She’ll drive you to the hotel. You need
the day off, too. You can play golf, idle
luxuriously, dance. Stay overnight. I’ll
pick you up in the morning.”
“Jim Wentworth,” she declared
quietly, “you’re trying to get rid of me.
You’re getting a bit afraid, also. It's
no go. Either we leave together, or
I’m seeing it through with you.” And
that was that.
At four o’clock Jim took a deep
breath, looked quizzically at Claire, went
quietly to the laboratory door, and flung
it open. The girl followed him with
firm tread.
The great interior was a hive of hum¬
ming activity. Every dynamo, every
motor, was whirring at full speed. A
strange violet light bathed every nook
and cranny. The galvanometers regis¬
tered an incredible half a million
amperes, voltmeters oscillated at the
incredible figure of fifteen million volts.
Power surged in almost visible waves
through the laboratory. But what held
them taut and speechless was the sight
of Matthew Draper.
He stood within the crystal cylinder !
He seemed taller than before; his eyes
were burning coals of frenzied eager¬
ness. His body quivered with impa¬
tience. He seemed like a whippet re¬
strained on the leash, tense for the mo¬
ment of release. Earth characteristics
had dropped away from him. Matthew
Draper, Earth scientist, was wholly sub¬
merged by — what?
Around the shimmering cylinder
stood the ring of Agravs; long, squat,
metallic monsters, their strangely curved
mouths gaping and pointing directly at
him. Huge cables snaked across the
floor, connecting power machines, great
electronic tubes, and Agravs, in intri¬
cate pattern. A gigantic knife switch
had been cut into the circuit on a panel
directly outside the enringing Agravs.
Draper turned at the sound of their
entry. The fierce, unrestrained light in
his eyes died, gave way to more human
emotion. Almost, Jim thought he de¬
tected a certain sadness, a certain regret
in that piercing gaze. But he must have
been mistaken, for the flame leaped back
again, more glittering than before.
He gestured to them. Involuntarily,
Jim’s hand closed tight in his trousers
pocket on the flat automatic. It was
fully loaded, and a cartridge belt hung
snug around his waist under his khaki
shirt. He had come prepared for all
eventualities.
"YOU ARE PROMPT, Jim Went¬
worth, as usual,” said Draper. He ex¬
pressed no surprise at his secretary’s
presence. His voice penetrated the
cylinder walls without distortion. Jim
had often wondered at the composition
of the transparent substance, but Draper
had not explained, and there were no
other samples of it he could have used
for analysis. It was not glass, nor
quartz. At the most, Jim had deter¬
mined that its crystalline structure was
arranged in polarized planes, parallel to
the axes of the Agravs.
“At exactly ten minutes after four,”
Draper continued, “you are to close that
switch.” He pointed to the newly in¬
stalled panel. “By exactly fifteen min¬
utes after four, you are to be out of the
house. You’ll find my car on the drive¬
way. The motor is going. The tank
is full of gas. Get away without an in¬
stant’s delay, and don’t stop until you
reach the Harbor House. And don’t
come back ! That is imperative. My
instructions must be followed minutely ;
the slightest deviation may mean disas¬
ter. And — you will find an envelope
addressed to each of you at the Harbor
House. You will both find yourselves
amply rewarded for your work. That
is all.”
INFRA-UNIVERSE
131
Gaire Rave a little gasp. Her hand
went out blindly to the man at her side
for protection. Jim’s lips tightened ; he
took a half step forward. “Mow listen
to me, Matthew Draper, or whoever you
are,” he rasped. “This farce has gone
on long enough. I have, as you say,
been extraordinarily patient; but it is
time now for the show-down.”
The scientist within the shimmering
cylinder stiffened. A palpable wave of
force seemed to lash out from his flam¬
ing eyes. Then he swerved to the elec¬
tric clock on the wall. Its hands pointed
to two minutes after four. “Have your
say,” he replied calmly. “You have
eight minutes time. Not a second
more.”
“I have this to say,” Jim retorted
grimly. “You are not Matthew Draper ;
you are some strange being, entity — God
knows what — that took violent residence
in his body. I demand answers to the
following questions: Who, in Heaven’s
name, are you? Where have you come
from, and for what purpose? What
have you done with Matthew Draper?
What forces are involved in the manipu¬
lations of these monstrous Agravs?
And what will happen when I pull the
switch?”
“Softly,” answered Draper with a
tinge of mockery. “I would not have
time to answer all your questions, even
if I wished. But I do not wish. It
is enough that you have guessed a dim
part of the truth. I am not Matthew
Draper. What I am, does not matter.
You would not, could not possibly be¬
lieve the real truth.”
“I know the truth,” Gaire cried out.
“You are a Martian, or a Venusian — a
being of some other planet.”
Draper smiled queerly. “I am not
of your Earth; that much is true," he
admitted. “But I cannot tell you more.
The knowledge would make you mad, it
would sound so utterly incredible to your
limited intelligences. Enough that I
have been here ; am now returning.
Earth will know me no more.” His
voice took on steely determination.
“Nor any more of my fellows, if what
I propose is successful. And that, my
Earth friends, you will discover to be
of infinite advantage to* you, though it
is impossible for me to explain.
“Nor shall I explain the workings
of the Agravs. You, Jim Wentworth,
would have sufficient intelligence to
reconstruct them. You, or others of
your race, might foolishly try to follow
into my world, in spite of all warnings.
Such a course would prove disastrous to
you, and possibly to us as well.”
“I’ve discovered this much,” said Jim.
“The cloud chamber experiments gave
me the clue. Their emanations do
things to space, and to matter. The
ordinary laws no longer apply. Magnet¬
ism, light, heat, yes, perhaps even gravi¬
tation, have no influence. And the mat¬
ter vanishes — where to, I have not been
able to determine. Perhaps into a
fourth dimension.”
“You have discovered more than you
should,” said Draper, biting his lip.
“Though the full, incredible truth is
beyond your imagination. Perhaps I
should destroy you before I leave ; it
might be wiser.”
CLAIRE cried out; Jim’s finger
tightened on the trigger of his con¬
cealed automatic.
“But it is not necessary,” continued
Draper. “For, at four thirty, this build¬
ing, and all it contains, will be thor¬
oughly destroyed. I have seen to that.
The place is mined with explosives, and
a clockwork mechanism will set it off.
That is why I gave you warning to leave
immediately after you have performed
your appointed task.”
Jim compressed his lips. “That is
just what I won’t do,” he declared, “un¬
less you return Matthew Draper to us,
alive and unharmed.”
Draper’s brow darkened. “It is im¬
possible,” he said angrily. “I am a part
132
ASTOUNDING STORIES
of him and he is a part of me. My con¬
tinued life depends on this community
of intra-position. It is unfortunate, but
he must accompany me to my destina¬
tion. Now hurry,” he added hastily,
hi-, eye flicking to the wall clock. “In
mother minute, exactly, the switch must
be pulled.”
Jim settled back comfortably on his
heels. “Release Draper then,” he in¬
sisted.
"I told you it is impossible,” the im¬
mured scientist cried out in exaspera¬
tion. “I’ve trusted you, Jim Went¬
worth. A clockwork mechanism to
activate the switch might have gone
astray; you, I thought, would not fail.
You must believe me. It means disaster
to a mighty race, to your universe as
well, if you don’t obey.”
“Release Draper,” Jim repeated stub-
l)omly.
The clock ticked on. Ten seconds to
go. “Fool !” shouted the man in the
cylinder in an awful voice. “Do it now,
or it will be too late.”
Claire plucked at Jim’s arm. “Quick!
Obey him ! He’s really sincere. Some¬
thing terrible will happen.”
Jim shook his head. “He's bluffing;
that’s all.”
Five seconds of ten after four!
Draper literally cowered. His face
was a dreadful mask of anguish. “Claire
Gray," he said thickly, “believe me !
Your fate, the fate of all the universes,
depend on knifing the switch. Quick.1”
Her eyes widened on him. “I believe
you,” she screamed suddenly, and darted
for the panel.
Jim whirled, shouted savagely. “He’s
bluffing, I tell you. Don’t touch it!”
“He’s not,” she panted. Her fingers
reached up, pulled desperately down.
The second hand clicked into the last
position.
Jim grunted an oath, sprinted. If
that switch made contact, his trump card
would be gone. They would never see
Draper again. What reason had they
to believe that the entity in the cylinder
was telling the truth? Perhaps the
transparent material was a shield of
force, to protect him from what was
going to happen. How did they know
that they would not unwittingly bring
disaster to an unknowing world? Given
time, he’d force the truth out of the
man in the cylinder.
In his mad, forward rush, he collided
with the snout of one of the Agravs. It
pivoted around on a turntable, oscil¬
lated back and forth with the jarring
vibration. Jim had no time to think of
that. His sinewy hand jerked forward,
caught at Claire’s wrist. Too late ! The
blades made contact with an irrevocable
click.
The violet flame deepened. Great
sparks flared and sputtered over the cop¬
per flanges. It would be suicide to try
and grasp the handle now. There was
a humming noise that grew quickly into
a full-throated roar.
Claire sobbed, “I shouldn’t have done
it, Jim !”
The roar grew louder. The building
rocked with vibration. And high above
it the half-outcry, half-piercing hiss, of
Matthew Draper. Jim whirled. The
cylinder was aglow in the violet bath.
The spiral casing of wire flared a fiery
red. The man himself was a gleaming
torch of radiance. But his finger
pointed desperately to the solitary Agrav
which Jim had knocked askew.
It was oscillating on its pivoted base
in a wide arc. Palpable vibrations,
waves of violent cracklings, issued from
its twisted mouth, steeped everything in
its path in the strange, torchlike radi¬
ance. Apparatus, walls, hazed and be¬
came transparent. Beyond their con¬
finement, the outer fields appeared ; sky,
road, the distant Harbor House. Then
they, too, hazed and shimmered with
violent transparence.
Then Qaire's cry came to him, faint,
far-off. He swung around again. She,
also, was a flaring, misting waviness.
INFRA-UNIVERSE
133
Her features blurred, mouth still open
with the faintness of her cry.
Too late, Jim realized what he had
done. With a groan he sprang for the
wide-swinging Agrav. Or rather, tried
to spring. For the curved maw, in its
oscillation, bore directly upon him. The
crackling waves spattered over him, past
hint. Something happened. A curious
sense of lightness, of floating on air.
His limbs seemed independent of his
shrieking will. The universe seemed
to flatten out, to roll away from him like
a lifting curtain from a stage.
The laboratory receded into nothing¬
ness; so did Claire, the Agravs them¬
selves. Only illimitable violet radiance
remained. He was dropping — no, that
was not the sensation, for that involved
a feeling of weight, of gravitational tug.
He was being released from the tram¬
mels of space, was emerging from its
confines, was leaving it far behind.
The enveloping light roared and sang.
It grew to unbearable intensity. There
was a vast, soundless explosion, as if
the universe itself had burst asunder.
And with it, the individual who once had
been Jim Wentworth seemed to burst
into a thousand million sundering
shards !
II.
JIM WENTWORTH looked about
him dazedly. His senses were still scat¬
tered, his mind not functioning effi¬
ciently. He seemed to be sitting at an
angle, as if somehow he had landed on
a mountainside. He struggled, half con¬
scious, to his feet, and slipped. He tried
to hold himself, couldn’t. Down the
smooth, steep floor of the laboratory he
slithered, until, with a crash, he brought
up, breathless and bruised, at the solid
wood of the wall.
Warily he arose again, tried to get his
bearings. The wall sagged away from
him at a steep angle. It was but a semi¬
shell. Loose apparatus huddled in a
smashed heap at its base. It extended
its full length, but the inclosing sides
were cut off abruptly.
Slowly, he turned, looked up at the
place from which he had just tumbled.
He caught his breath. The tilted floor
of the lab was cut off as abruptly as the
sides of an arc convex to himself. Be¬
yond was — nothingness. Or rather, a
faint cerise glow that extended inter¬
minably, seemingly to infinity itself.
Nothing moved in that circumscribed
expanse ; no Sun, no Moon, no stars,
no clouds.
He was thoroughly awake now. The
Agravs had been in that upper part, so
had the cylinder inclosing Matthew
Draper. They were gone, with the rest
of the house, the Maine woods, Earth,
the universe itself. Swift pain stabbed
suddenly through him. Where was
Claire Gray ?
As if in answer, a 1 oy? moan came
to him. He swung precariously on the
angled floor, saw something stir in the
heaped wreckage against the wall. He
skidded toward the huddled girl, lifted
her in his arms. She was alive, her eye¬
lids fluttering. A shallow gash bled
freely on her forehead. But — and he
heaved a great sigh — she was alive!
He stanched the flow with his pocket
handkerchief, rubbed her limbs briskly.
He had no water. She opened her eyes,
stared bewilderedly around. “What hap¬
pened? Where are we?”
“I can answer the first question easily
enough,” he told her grimly. “Draper
was right. My fool rush to stop
you jerked one of his confounded Ag¬
ravs around. We got the same dose
that was meant only for himself, within
the guarding walls of the cylinder. But
just where we are is another matter.”
He pointed upward at the illimitable
cerise. “There’s one answer, and it
looks senseless. The other must be on
the other side of this wall.” His face
tightened. “We’re going out to see.”
134
ASTOUNDING STORIES
IT WAS difficult picking their way
through the strewn rubbish. The door
sagged crazily, and required force to
swing open. The reception room was
level, untouched. Nothing seemed to
have happened in here. Jim stared.
“That’s funny,” he muttered. Perhaps it
was only the explosion that upended the
lab — or what is left of the lab.” New
hope stirred. “Maybe that cerise busi¬
ness is only an optical illusion, and
everything is as it was. Maybe - ” He
paused, grinned. “There’s only one way
to find out.”
The lights still burned in the room.
The windows were tight-shuttered. His
hand gripped the knob of the door that
led to the open. He looked at Claire,
took a deep breath, flung it wide. A
cry broke simultaneously from both. It
was a cry of gladness.
The peaceful Maine countryside shim¬
mered lazily before them. There was
the meandering dirt road, the waving
fields of grain, the several farmhouses,
with the gray smoke curling slowly into
the sky. In the distance, the Harbor
House lifted its many windows. A man
even, a normal human being, was trudg¬
ing down the road toward them.
“Thank Heaven!” Claire said in a
choked voice. “It was all a dream, a
horrible nightmare.”
But Jim’s eyes narrowed against the
glare of light. For one thing, it was
faintly tinged with cerise — not the hon¬
est yellow-white of sunshine ; for an¬
other, there was something strangely
familiar in the dress, the walk, of that
approaching figure. The man lifted his
bowed head. Jim groaned. “I was
afraid of that,” he whispered.
“What?” demanded Claire. “Isn’t
everything all right?” Then she, too,
saw the man. He was close to them
now. A little cry broke from her.
“Matthew Draper!”
Draper nodded wearily. His face was
haggard and seamed with new lines.
“Yes,” he answered simply. “The old
Draper ; the vanished one to whom you
remained loyal in spite of everything.”
He passed his hand over his brow. He
was trembling. “Lord ! What a horrible
experience !”
Jim stared, bewildered. The alienness
had gone out of Draper. There was no
question of his complete Earthiness.
Claire sobbed joyfully. “We mis¬
judged the other. He released you after
all ; went back to his own world with¬
out harming any of us in the least.”
Draper shook his head sadly. “You
haven’t seen. Look!” He pointed up¬
ward.
Heads flung back, they saw for the
first time. High above, swimming in a
cerise void, three suns, gigantic, rotating
rapidly on flattened axes, one a deep
orange, another a canary yellow, the
third a dark blue, whirled around each
other in swaying, complex orbits. The
sky of Earth ended abruptly not over a
mile overhead, cut off sharply and
cleanly from the illimitable, super¬
imposed cerise as with a knife.
Far distant, to one side, and over the
Harbor House, hung a gigantic silver
globe. Its metal-seeming surface was
studded with flaming sparkles of light
whose hues shifted with the majestic
sweep of the multicolored suns across
its gleaming convex. Jim rapidly esti¬
mated its distance as a thousand Earth
miles, its size somewhat half that of
Earth itself.
“We’ve been transported to a system
in some distant nebula,” he said aloud.
“The home of the being who took your
form, Professor Draper. The entire
Earth has been shifted.”
Draper shook his head again. “He
warned you the truth would be incred¬
ible,” he said. “Look behind you, for
one thing.”
They turned. The ground lifted up
at a steep angle, even as the laboratory
floor had done. There was a knifelike
ridge, then — nothingness. Or rather.
INFRA-UNIVERSE
135
the infinite cerise of a space beyond their
wildest dreams.
The Earth had been cut off sharply,
in an arc convex to them. In that im¬
mense inane, far off, so far it seemed
but a tiny green disk, was another globe,
solitary, green-tinged, swimming in the
impalpable, all-pervading glow. No suns
spread their kindly rays over its surface ;
the dull green of its somber metal ab¬
sorbed, rather than reflected, light.
Claire shivered. “It’s somehow sin¬
ister.”
JIM turned slowly to the scientist.
He was beginning to understand — and
the knowledge left him shaken. “I
gummed up the works. The Agra/v
I knocked out of line precipitated a
segment of Earth into this nebula, uni¬
verse, whatever it is, along with the
entity that had taken possession of your
body.”
“A segment of about one hundred
and twenty degree spread, with a radius
of ten miles, a depth of some two miles,
and an atmosphere of not over a mile,”
Draper confirmed. “Back on Earth,
North America is being shaken by tre¬
mendous storms, due to the vacuum
created; and, no doubt, later, there will
be scientific expeditions to puzzle over
the vast hole in northwestern Maine;
and deep lamentations over the hundreds
of people who were whirled with it
into nothingness.”
Jim said grimly. “Of course! I’d
almost forgotten. There are others with
us in the same boat.” He waved to¬
ward the distant Harbor House, and
laughed mirthlessly. “The nouveau
riche, the pampered wealthy ! Swell com¬
pany for an incredible adventure like
this! Bet they’re still dancing, playing
golf, not knowing what struck them. Im¬
agine some one’s astonishment, on the
eighteenth hole, slicing a ball suddenly
into a newly created hazard — a cerise
nothingness.”
“They’re not so bad,” Claire defended
them. “Some of them are quite nice.”
Jim looked at her quickly. He was
surprised at an unsuspected twinge of
jealousy within him. But there were
more serious, more tremendous prob¬
lems at hand. “Before we go off half
cocked, we’d better take stock, get our
bearings.” He addressed Draper di¬
rectly. “Do you know where we are?”
“Yes.” An odd reluctance made the
scientist hesitate. Then he made up
his mind to frankness. “You might as
well know. Perhaps it’ll help. We’re
in a different universe.” He held up
his hand in warning at Jim’s half-
sceptical nod. “I don’t mean merely
another galaxy, like the Great Nebula
of Andromeda; we’re out of our space
time completely.”
Something tightened around Jim’s
heart. “You mean another dimension?”
he asked.
“Worse than that,” Draper retorted.
“I told you the truth would be incredible.
We’re in a place where even the dimen¬
sions have no meaning.”
“Suppose you explain.” Jim grunted.
Claire said nothing. She was over¬
whelmed.
“It’s rather difficult,” the scientist
submitted, “but I’ll try. Before Ein¬
stein and relativity, our universe, space,
was supposed to be infinite in extent.
Journey as far as you wished, in any
direction, for an infinite time, and you’d
never get to the end of the universe.”
“Go on,” urged Jim.
“With Einstein, however, the con¬
ception changed. The size of our uni¬
verse, or better still, space time,
depended on the quantity of matter in
the universe. Matter created space time,
warped it around itself. The warp was,
in itself, gravitation. But mathematical
calculations proved the amount of mat¬
ter to be limited. Hence space time
itself is limited, warped around the
universe matter in a gigantic hyper¬
shell, unbounded, because it is globular,
but finite.”
136
ASTOUNDING STORIES
“First, 1 must say this: You are not Matthew Draper; you are some strange
being, entity — God knows what — that took residence in his body. Why?”
hvVU\mvV\\\\\\.u
INFRA-UNIVERSE
137
“Go away, and do not come back! My directions must be followed
minutely; the slightest deviation may mean disaster!”
ASTOUNDING STORIES
“That much we knew,” Jim said.
“YES, but few have speculated as to
the obvious problems arising out of
this conception. True, it was known
that the universe was expanding, eating
into outer nonspace time, warping it
into the familiar gravitational pattern
around the outrushing nebula, but
hardly any one ever thought to consider
the inner core ; in other words, what was
inside of this hyper shell of space time
which constituted our universe.
“Those who did, like Eddington,
ducked the issue. He maintained that
only the skin, or shell of the hyper¬
sphere existed — that the skin existed
without any inside. But my own re¬
searches, even before this — this hap¬
pened to me, had convinced me that
there was an inside. And I am proven
incontestably right by this terrific trans¬
position of ours. We are no longer in
our own universe, or any universe of
the hypersphere of space time. That
is a shell outside of us, inclosing us,
yet as infinitely remote as if it held no
existence.
“We are within the superimposed
round of the familiar universe — we are
the inside — in an incredible space time
with completely novel properties.”
“I was afraid of that,” Jim said
slowly. “We’re on a mere sliver of
Earth, sliced off by my own incredible
folly, catapulted into something even
more incredible than my folly, marooned
for all eternity.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Claire cried
warmly. “It was mine; for believing
that — that other-universe creature who
was - ” She turned swiftly to Draper,
awed. “Where, then, were you all that
time ?’
The scientist shivered. “If I live an
eternity, I’ll never forget the horror of
it,” he declared fervently. “It started
with the abrupt visitation of the farmer.
He was a farmer, but Insar had already
pierced the unfathomable gulf from
here into our hypershell, contacted
Earth, and interpenetrated himself into
the form of that poor, unknowing fel¬
low. For Insar, as I discovered later,
is an incredible entity, a colloidal, form¬
less mass, structureless, alike in every
part — and lifeless.”
“Lifeless?” echoed Claire and Jim
simultaneously. "That superintelligence
lifeless!”
Draper puckered his brow with
frowning thought. “It’s hard to under¬
stand, I admit. Even I find it difficult;
though, when we were fused together, so
to speak, I caught glimmerings from the
contact of his vast mind. It seems that
he and his fellows are what, in our uni¬
verse, would be considered that twilight
borderland between living and nonliving
matter.
“They are primal compounds, an in¬
terfusion of pure matter and pure
thought — the two great principles of all
universes. Yet they are neither one nor
the other, nor separated as we find them.
There is no structure — on the one hand,
into electrons, protons; on the other,
into the unknown vibrations we term
thought, intellect, soul, if you will. Only
when such structures are furnished them
may they function and live. At least in
our universe.
"Here, where the laws of being are
different, no doubt these essences of
pure thought and pure matter have an
uninhibited life of their own, all the
more vast and splendid for the lack of
restrictions of body and structure.”
"That sounds,” Jim interposed ex¬
citedly, “like a description, only on an
infinitely vaster scale, of certain strange
borderline forms that were only recently
discovered on Earth. I mean the ultra¬
viruses. They, too, have been assumed
to be lifeless, unable to propagate, vet,
on contact with living forms, such as
bacteria or animal tissues, they display
activities similar to those of life. They
absorb the living tissues ; they grow and
reproduce their kind They range in
INFRA-UNIVERSE
139
sire from an organic molecule in un¬
broken grade to the tiniest of the bac¬
teria. Some of our most terrible
diseases are caused by them.”
DRAPER looked startled. “I’ve
heard of them, vaguely. They’re, of
course, out of my field. But it does
sound like a striking similarity.”
Whereupon he dismissed that angle of
it, and proceeded with his personal
narrative.
“As I said, Insar required an Earthly
form in order to manifest an Earth life.
The farmer was evidently the first ma¬
terial at hand. But he was rather poor
material for his purposes. I gathered
that Insar, for some reason, had been
exiled from his own universe, had been
thrust unwillingly into ours. He wanted
to get back, and some dreadful urgency
drove him to a furious haste. He re¬
quired an Earth intelligence more ad¬
vanced, an Earth body more likely to
get liim the apparatus and supplies he
needed to build his Agravs, than the
farmer. He found me.”
Draper blushed, stammered. “I don’t
mean that I was such an intelligence,
but - ”
“Insar was quite right in his choice,”
Jim interposed.
“Well — anyway — I was close at hand
to the travel possibilities of this Maine
countryman; I had a laboratory which
held a good deal of apparatus useful for
his purposes; and I knew something
about the particular problem he was
attacking— the piercing of space and
its concomitant, gravitation. I don’t
know exactly what happened. But
when the strange intruder burst into my
laboratory, and stared at me with re¬
markably intense eyes, I must have
fallen asleep.
“When I awoke, the visitor was gone,
and I was — well — some one else. A
new entity interpenetrated all my being,
dominated my physical movements,
drained my thought processes, was
something that was not I. Yet all the
while I was aware of what was going
on — a potential, rather than an actual
being. It was a choking, helpless sensa¬
tion, such as one gets in nightmares.”
He stopped, shivered again.
Jim had a swift vision of an incred¬
ible, amorphous body oozing out of the
immobile farmer, inserting itself into
all the interstices of Matthew Draper,
becoming Matthew Draper ; and he also
shuddered.
“He quit your form on his return to
his own universe, I suppose,” he said
aloud.
“Yes. I found myself suddenly walk¬
ing down this road toward you.”
“And the principle of the universe
transposition?” Jim persisted. “Of the
Agravs themselves? Did you get any
inkling?”
“I was on the verge of it, in theory
at least, before Insar came. Space is
merely an attribute of matter — its cloth¬
ing, so to speak. Gravitation is an attri¬
bute of the warp of space. Now suppose
it were possible to dissociate the clothing
from the man; in other words, matter
from its warp of space. What would
happen?”
Jim puckered his forehead. “Matter
would cease to exist in our space time.
The laws of space would no longer
apply. Gravitation among them.”
“Exactly. Somehow — I don't pretend
to know the process — Insar was able to
flatten out the space that surrounded
us by means of a vibration that ema¬
nated from the Agravs. By so doing,
he withdrew us, and all of Earth within
range of the machine you set swinging,
from the properties of our space time.
We were, in a way, free of our uni¬
verse.
“Then it was that the interior universe,
hitherto circumscribed, was enabled to
act upon us, draw us toward it. There
is no way of telling how long we dropped
through a space time that flattened al¬
ways out of our path, into this new space
140
ASTOUNDING STORIES
time. It might have been an instant;
it might have been millions of years.
But then, our concepts of time must
perforce be discarded.”
Jim started to his feet. They had
been sitting on the steps that led into
the house. “Other universe or not, I
find Earth appetites asserting themselves
with normal vehemence. I’m hungry.”
“So am I,” Claire piped up.
Draper smiled. “We carried with us,
on this small segment of Earth and
layer of atmosphere, all of Earth's prop¬
erties. I must sorrowly confess that I
could eat, too.”
THEY found, fortunately, that the
kitchen was intact. There was ample
food for at least a week. After that -
Jim shrugged. He felt better now that
he had eaten. New vigor stirred in
him — the vigor of pioneer forbears.
“If this is to be our new world,” he
said buoyantly, “we had better get it
organized. There must be several hun¬
dred people scattered on this sliver of
Earth, wondering what it's all about.
We’ve got a job ahead.”
His eyes kindled ; he proceeded with
mounting enthusiasm. “Think of it;
a bare hundred Earth people, marooned
in a universe beyond their former
imaginings, clinging precariously to a
few square miles of ground. With these
we must rebuild a civilization, provide
food, shelter, clothing for all the genera¬
tions that will spring from us, take our
part in the immensity of the inner uni¬
verse.
“Perhaps” — and he turned brooding
eyes aloft at the rainbow-hued suns, the
gleaming vastness of the silver sphere;
a more somber glance at the dull-green,
tremendously remote orb that seemed
to cast a blight on a cerise infinity —
“perhaps we may in time find a way to
migrate to those other worlds, or planets,
and find a larger sphere for our talents
and activities.”
“Captain John Smith leading the
colonists to a new world,” Claire con¬
tributed gayly.
A certain grimness settled on Jim.
He was staring out at the Harbor
House. “And like John Smith,” he
growled, “for the main I’ll have a pack
of lily-handed gentlemen — and ladies —
who never did a day’s work in their
lives, and will expect those who did to
continue to perform for their special
benefit.”
“You are rather bitter against the
guests of the Harbor House,” Claire
said wonderingly. “Why?”
“Because,” he answered fiercely, “I’ve
had to work for what I got all my life.
I’ve tried, in mv modest way, to create
things, whether it was railroads, or
bridges, or help some one else advance
the world’s stock of knowledge a bit.
“Matthew Draper has done very much
more — he thrust back the boundaries,
-made man a bit nearer the stars.” He
grinned suddenly. “Or nearer Infra-
Universe, as it turned out. But, over
there, they have been mere parasites,
living on others’ labors, contributing
not a whit. Well,” he went on grimly,
.“they’ll contribute here, or damn well
starve.”
“They’re not as bad as you paint
them,” Claire said softly. “I know a
good many of them. You forget — or
rather, you don’t know — that when
father was alive, I, too, was a gilded
lily, and stopped at the Harbor House.”
He looked at her queerly. “That’s
all been burned out by the fires of
adversity,” he retorted gruffly. “You’ve
been doing your bit.”
“We’re running a little ahead of the
picture,” the scientist interposed. “We’ll
be at the most a mere handful, and
obviously vastly inferior to at least some
of the denizens of this new universe.
That is, assuming that Insar was a fair
example.”
“We can’t even assume that,” Claire
objected. “He had been exiled, cast out,
by his own admission. That means there
INFRA-UNIVERSE
141
are others, more powerful, who were
his enemies. Which also indicates that
all is not peaceful in Infra-Universe,
any more than it is in our own world.”
“Exactly,” Draper agreed. He shook
his head gravely. “Our problems will
include not only those inherent in adjust¬
ing ourselves to a new environment,
but the possibility of conflict with un¬
known, and unknowable, forces and
beings.” He stared across infinity with
troubled gaze. “I’m afraid we’ll have
to reckon with one of those spheres
before long.”
“Not the nearer one,” protested
Claire. “It’s too beautiful ! That must
be Insar’s home. It's that far-distant
orb of green, solitary in the immensities
as if there were a curse upon it, that
sends cold shudders up and down my
back every time I look at it.” Wherein,
as is usual with woman’s intuitions, she
was partly right and partly wrong. The
entire truth was too complex and terri¬
fying for hyper-universe instincts.
“Insar was racing to avert some in¬
credible catastrophe,” Draper mur¬
mured. “I wonder if he has succeeded.”
“We’re speculating idly,” Jim de¬
clared with practical common sense,
“and wasting valuable time. If we don’t
get started organizing this poor, exiled
little sliver of Earth in a hurry, nothing
else will matter very much. We’d better
take stock, find out what our resources
are. Come on !”
As they trudged down the rutted dirt
road toward the concrete highway —
fitting symbol of their strange predica¬
ment, beginning in abrupt nothingness,
and terminating in the void — Jim said:
“I’ve been wondering why, with the
mass of our world reduced to infini¬
tesimal proportions, don’t we feel a dif¬
ference in the gravitational tug? Ac¬
cording to our hyper-universe laws, we
should be incredibly light; the least of
steps should send us soaring off the
surface and out into the void.”
“I’ve been thinking of that, also,”
Draper confessed. “The only explana¬
tion that occurs to me is that the Agravs
tore away, along with us, an inclosing
strip of space, warp a.nd all. If our
space is of a different order from that
which exists in this Infra-Universe, then
they wouldn’t mix, in the fashion of
oil and water, and the warp would re¬
main constant, even though the residue
of matter no longer possessed sufficient
bending qualities. Which naturally
would mean that the gravitational tug
would not have varied.”
THE FIRST human habitation to
which they came was a farmhouse.
Green fields surrounded it, ripe with the
dark of potato plants, with the yellow
of tall, waving corn. A sleek cow
turned wondering eyes at them, swished
her tail lazily at the buzzing insects, and
returned to the serious business of chew¬
ing her cud. An old sow suckled a
squealing brood of future hams and
rashers of bacon, oblivious of fine dis¬
tinctions between one universe and
another. Gray smoke curled lazily from
a bedraggled brick chimney. Every¬
thing was peaceful, inert, with the
brooding sultriness of late summer.
“One problem seems to have solved
itself — at least for the while,” Jim said
joyfully. “Food !”
“Why, they don’t even seem to realize
what has happened,” Claire burst out
wonderingly.
“Of course not,” Draper commented.
“They just fell out of one universe, and
into another; earth, fields, atmosphere
and all. Strange suns and silver-shin¬
ing globes mean nothing to cows and
pigs. You felt the shock of disruption
because you were at the very edge of
the change. They wouldn’t.”
Jim shouted, “Hello, in there !”
There was the slow stir of feet within,
the scraping of chairs. A figure blotted
out the door space, peered out. “Howdy,
strangers!” it said in a cracked, high-
142
ASTOUNDING STORIES
pitched voice. “Seems as if I hearn you
call.”
He was old and gnarled, and weath¬
ered by many summers and winters.
His lantern jaws were still chewing
vigorously. He had been disturbed
from his evening meal.
“Gracious heavens!” Claire whis¬
pered unbelievingly. “He doesn’t
know !”
“You all right?” Jim queried.
“Why, sure!” the farmer returned
wonderingly.
“And the rest of your family? All
inside and O. K. ?”
The man turned in some bewilderment
to the dark interior. “Maria, Amos,
Sal !” he called.
There was a confusion of voices, a
dull thud of movement. “What's the
matter, pa?” A stout, slatternly woman
in faded gingham edged him slightly
away from the door, stared at the in¬
truders suspiciously. Two tow-headed
children, bright-eyed, inquisitive, peeped
out from behind their mother’s skirts.
“You ain’t tax collectors?” she de¬
manded.
“No, just checking up,” Jim re¬
sponded cheerfully. "You haven’t no¬
ticed anything wrong ?”
“Why should we?” she snapped.
There was no doubt as to who was the
head of this particular family. “Ex¬
ceptin’ for strangers who disturb us at
our meal,” she added meaningly.
“Sorry we had to do that, ma’am.”
Jim bowed gallantly. “But it was
necessary. You're not in Maine any
more, and life is going to be a bit dif¬
ferent from now on.”
“Not in Maine?” husband and wife
chorused. A tinge of anger crept into
the woman’s voice. “Ye’re jokin’,
stranger, and I ain’t keen on jokes.”
“Not at all,” Jim assured her gravely.
“If you’ll just step out into the open
and look at the sky, you’ll notice the
difference.”
They all piled out at that, and stared,
mouths agape, eyes round like saucer*,
at the incredible sky. The children
reached up grubby fingers.
“Pretty !” said the little girl.
The boy started to howl. “Gimme !”
he cried eagerly, pointing to the flashing
sphere.
The woman compressed her lips with
a snap. “It’s a fake!” she said de¬
cisively, and glowered at the bringers
of the news. “C’mon, Hiram; ain’t got
no time to be wasting on suchlike. Sup¬
per’ll be gittin’ cold.”
“Yes, Maria,” he answered meekly.
“I’m a-comin’.”
It took exhausting explanations to
convince them the sky was not a show,
put on by the strangers for some cryptic
reason of their own ; that they had been
carried, willy nilly, into a strange and
unknown universe.
WHEN THE THREE, who per¬
force had assumed leadership of the new
state of affairs, had ended, and Draper
had surreptitiously mopped a perspiring
forehead, they were still only half con¬
vinced.
“Well,” declared the woman re¬
luctantly, “mebbe it’s so. But I don’t
see as it’s much concern of our’n. We
kin git along, wherever we be. Crops’ll
grow, and cows an’ pigs'll litter.” She
slapped the children suddenly. “Stop
gawping!” she scolded. “Ain’t I told
you time’n again never to gawp at
people. Git inside 1” She was already
back inside the door. "Thankee,
strangers,” she called back. “But there
ain't no call to go worryin’ about us.”
The old farmer shrugged, winked
stealthily at his visitors, followed her
in. The door slammed shut.
The three looked at each other. Claire
suddenly doubled up with laughter.
“They’re just entering the most tre¬
mendous adventure that could possibly
happen to human beings,” she gasped,
“and all they’re afraid of is their supp-tr
getting cold.”
INFRA-UNIVERSE
143
“Whew!” Jim whistled. “And I was
scared stiff of frightening them out of
their senses!"
“The remarkable elasticity of the
human spirit, or more accurately, the
remarkable resistive inertia to all shat¬
tering novelties, is nowhere better ex¬
emplified than in down-East Yankees,”
said Draper. “Which, under present
conditions, is rather a blessing.”
They passed several other farmhouses
on the way. In some, the inhabitants
had noticed the change-over, and been
mildly interested; in others, the men
were taking advantage of the inexplic¬
able length of the day to collect their
hay, to finish up daylight chores. For
the fragment of Earth was stationary
in the vast inane, without rotatory spin
or forward revolution. The three many-
hued suns gyrated interminably over¬
head. It would always be day.
Life went on!
THE HARBOR HOUSE hove in
sight. Here, if anywhere, in this ab¬
stracted sector of Maine, there would
be panic, confusion, vast wonderment.
There was ! The entire population of
the fashionable resort, guests, manage¬
ment, waiters, cooks, stableboys, were
out on the widespreading, flower-decked
lawns, pointing, chattering like parrots,
milling inconclusively. A woman hud¬
dled in a gayly striped sun chair, crying
softly. No one paid any attention to
her.
The racket ceased as the three pur¬
veyors of the impossible news swung
off the highway, onto the grounds.
There was a concerted movement to¬
ward them. An iron-gray man, tall,
eyes popping, waved his hands wildly.
“For Heaven’s sake, what’s the meaning
of all this?” he shouted.
Others pressed up eagerly. Voices
rose again, hurling questions, heeding
no one else. A man had teed off on the
fourteenth hole. The ball had whizzed
off into a sudden void of swirling light.
If he hadn’t jumped backward, he would
have gone, too.
Another had one moment waved a
welcoming hand to a car, New York
bound, filled with friends, at a point
where the highway took a bend into the
valley. The next moment car and road
and valley were swallowed up in noth¬
ingness, and the terrified observer had
raced back to the hotel, crying the
catastrophic news.
The manager of the hotel, no longer
suave and oilily polite, stood wringing
his hands. His season, all future sea¬
sons, would be ruined if the newspapers
got hold of this freakish, unheralded
calamity. As for the triple sun aloft,
the studded planetary orb, they had been
too stunned even to venture an opinion.
Jim . raised his hand authoritatively.
There would be a first-class panic on his
hands if he didn’t quell it in its incipient
stages. These were civilized people —
overcivilized, in fact. Their reactions
would be far different from those of the
phlegmatic natives, accustomed to the
unaccountable vagaries of nature,
blessed with an utter lack of nerves or
imagination.
“Quiet !” he shouted. “You’re worse
than a pack of children.” They paused,
looked at him with mingled indignation
and amazement — and obeyed.
Jim Wentworth was stripped of all
scientific meekness; once more he was
the builder of railroads, the organizer
of masses of men, the leader of a revo¬
lutionary command. His lean face was
hard, his body tough and wiry, his voice
that of one accustomed to instant
obedience. There was obvious relief in
the yielding of the frightened people
to his will. He inspired confidence.
Claire Gray stole a surreptitious look
at him; she was se&ing him with new
eyes; and, from the sudden sparkle in
them, it was evident that Jim was not
suffering in her estimation thereby.
“That’s better,” Jim said with easy
arrogance. “But before we try to tell
144
ASTOUNDING STORIES
you exactly what has happened to all of
us, let me introduce ourselves. I'm Jim
Wentworth; this is Miss Gray.” Several
of the more decorative young men and
women waved greeting. They knew
her. “And this is Professor Matthew
Draper, most outstanding physicist in
the world.”
Draper turned red, made feeble mo¬
tions of denial. They examined him
with respectful interest. Newspaper ac¬
counts of his work, highly sensational,
had made his name familiar even to
those who read only the headlines.
Jim was playing for time, to calm
their nerves against the stunning nature
of their announcement. Draper's name
would be sufficient guarantee that it
was not some kind of a dreadful hoax.
THEY LISTENED to his short,
staccato sentences. He let them down
as easily as possible. He explained in
the simplest of terms. They harkened,
faces uplifted in the pinkish light, steal¬
ing incredulous looks from time to time
at those incredible bodies in an incredible
heaven. It took time to penetrate —
especially the fact that they were
marooned in an alien universe, never
in all eternity to win back to the world
of Earth and Sun and Moon and
familiar stars which they had taken for
granted all their lives.
When he had finished, a woman
shrieked suddenly. “My babies! I’ll
never see them again !” She promptly
went into hysterics and had to be led,
sobbing and crying, into the hotel. The
tragedy of endless separation spread like
a pall on many faces, as realization
dawned that loved ones, friends, all that
they had held dear, were an infinity
away.
A Wall Street broker loosened his
collar with trembling fingers. “I’ve got
to get back!” he implored. “I’ll be
ruined if I don’t attend the opening of
the market on Monday.” He looked
eagerly around, wildly. “I’ll give five
thousand dollars to any one who gets
me through to New York.”
It was tragi-comedy of a high order,
but only Jim and Claire and Draper
could savor it entire. The others were
too wrapped up in their own predica¬
ments to detect the touch of farce in
any one else’s reactions. And even
to these three, the farce was mingled
with the elements that brought unbidden
lumps into their throats.
It was too much to ask of these people,
accustomed to the shelter and security,
the order of their Earthly life, that
they grasp at once the nature of the
astounding, impossible thing that had
happened to them. They would for the
most part have gone mad. if they had.
They still clung with a pathetic, trustful
hope to the delusion that, no matter what
they were being told, somehow a way
would be found for their return, for the
gathering up of old threads.
For the present it was the immedi¬
acies that enlisted their fears and wor¬
ries: a party in Boston to which she
had looked forward for weeks ; the open¬
ing of the racing season at Saratoga,
which he had not missed in ten years;
a business deal that meant more hun¬
dreds of thousands added to millions;
a local golf tournament in which the
sleek-haired young man had been run¬
ner-up the year before ; a debutante
dance that simply must — must, didn't
they understand? — go through on the
appointed day; school, college, sports,
business — all the petty details and pur¬
suits which mankind deludes itself into
believing to be all-important, the end
and aim of life.
Jim felt a rising disgust with this
horde of well-dressed, aimless idlers.
There was more guts, he thought, to
those phlegmatic farmers who had
heard of their predicament, and dis¬
missed it as unimportant compared to
the elemental facts of life. As long as
their crops would grow, their cows calve,
INFRA-UNIVERSE
145
and the pigs litter, what did anything
else matter?
But even here, at Harbor House,
there was poignant tragedy : that poor
mother whose children had been left at
camp; others like her, reft irrevocably
of loved ones. Tragedy — and something
that descended to a lower level of human
emotion. A lovely woman breathed
audible relief, and turned to a dark,
handsome man with impulsive gesture.
She found no horror in the thought that
her husband was infinities away. Mean¬
ingful looks passed between others. A
blond, weak-looking face cleared magi¬
cally. Its owner giggled hysterically.
For the past week he had been screwing
up his courage to return and face the
music, and instead drank himself into a
stupor every night. There was the
matter of certain forged checks, a
mulcting of a partnership, that need now
no longer worry him.
And, as in every human society, cer¬
tain young men and women, with the
dew of freshness still upon them, had
inevitably paired off, and did not care
whether they were on Earth, or the
Moon, or a queer Infra-Universe — as
long as they were together.
THE FOLLOWING DAY— Earth
time — an improvised council met in one
of the more retired rooms of the hotel.
Present were Jim Wentworth, elected
chief by acclamation ; Matthew Draper ;
Claire Gray ; Dudley Nichols, a slight,
wizened man with a nervous habit of
biting his nails — he was the president of
a mining company; and Ben Hinkman,
a thickset farmer, as representative of
the agricultural community.
Jim laid the situation before them
more frankly and fully than he had to
the huddled people outside. “We have
got to forget, once and for all,” he de¬
clared firmly, “about Earth and the uni¬
verse from which we came. There is
no way of ever getting back. With
that in mind, it is our duty to lay per-
AST— 10
manent foundations for our future, and
the future of those who will come after
us, under the peculiar conditions by
which we are inextricably bound.”
He ticked them off on his fingers for
emphasis. “They are, first, that our
world is horribly limited. Our party of
exploration proved that. We’re on a
mere fragment, a segment of a sphere,
tapered at one end to a point, with a
radius of some ten miles, and not over
twenty miles across the circumscribing
arc. We could only estimate the depth,
but Professor Draper feels certain that
there are about two or three miles, at
the most, of solid earth beneath us. And
the atmosphere that was luckily dragged
along with us rises a little over a mile
into the immensity of this alien space.
In other words, we’re precariously on a
mere slice, a segment of a pancake, that
back on Earth would not have repre¬
sented a good-sized township.
“Second, the present population of our
little world is two hundred and seventy-
three men, women and children, who,
for our purposes, can be divided into
.three broad groups. Group A consists
of the farmers and their families, the
natives of this piece of ravished soil;
and I don't mind telling you” — be
grinned engagingly — “that I consider
them the most valuable, and the most
vital for our continued existence, of any
of the groups.”
Ben Hinkman chuckled approvingly,
cried, “Hear ! Hear !”
“Group B,” Jim continued, “is very
much smaller — a mere forty-eight all
told. I’ve placed in this rating the hotel
management, clerks, waiters, cooks,
gardeners, stablemen, chambermaids,
etc. Most of them will have their uses
in the new world we are fashioning,
though” — and again he grinned — “the
clerks, waiters and the high-and-mighty
manager of the Harbor House will have
to develop new functions to become an
integral part of the community. But I
anticipate that, after some initial maJ-
146
ASTOUNDING STORIES
adjustments, they will not be found
wanting.”
His face grew grave. “I come now
to Group C — the largest of them all,
reaching the staggering number of one
hundred and eighty-six out of a total
population of two hundred and seventy-
three. They are the guests of the Har¬
bor House. I am throwing in with them
certain others — ourselves; the political
gent'eman who, in trying to persuade the
Maine folk to vote him into office, was
unfortunately catapulted into a universe
where votes will be of little avail for a
long time, I hope; and also the miscel¬
laneous parties of tourists who were
caught in the toils while following the
broad highway on their way to Canada.
But in the main, Group C, comprising
the guests of the hotel, is rather homo¬
geneous in character and — a problem.”
DUDLEY NICHOLS chewed ab¬
sent-mindedly on the finger nail of his
left thumb, cleared his throat. “Hem,
young man, just what do you mean by
that ?”
Jim said calmly : “It’s plain enough.
Take a look at them in the mass.
Wealthy, every one of them ; otherwise
they couldn’t have afforded Harbor
House prices. Some of them work, it
is true, but a.t what ? Banking, broker¬
age, stock-market manipulations, insur¬
ance. Even those who head great basic
industries are mere fronts, signers of
checks. The real work is done by ex¬
ecutive managers, plant superintendents,
men who are too busy, or too scornful,
to come to a place like this.”
Nichols rose with dignity. His nerv¬
ous tic left him. “Young man,” he said,
“I happen to be one of those — uh —
fronts. I’m president of the Vulcan
mining outfit. It happens, also, that I
had prospected all the way from the
Andes to Alaska when I was your age,
grubbed with pick and shovel, and can
run every damn machine in my outfit —
or any outfit — if I have to.”
“I don’t doubt it, Mr. Nichols,” Jim
agreed warmly. “That’s why I wanted
you on this council. I simply made a
generalization. I didn’t mean that there
weren’t exceptions. But how many are
there like you in that crowd?”
“Darn few,” said Nichols, mollified,
and sat down.
“Exactly. And unfortunately — or
rather fortunately — our present situa¬
tion does not call for the exercise of
any talents for the stock market, or
for juggling money.
“Look at the women also — highly
decorative, I’ll grant you — but what
do they know, what skills have they, in
the basic arts of life? They may play
the piano, paint a little, sing a little,
understand quite expertly the uses and
abuses of Parisian gowns, the gentle art
of spending money. But those fine arts
won’t help here at all.
“And the young men. who have
broken the eighties in golf, possess an
adequate backhand, and know Culbert¬
son’s system of forced bidding to per¬
fection — what can we do with them?
We’re pioneers, faced with problems far
more serious and desperate than any
John Smith’s pitiful crew of gentlemen
adventurers were ever called upon to
face in the Virginia wilderness. We’ve
got to till the soil, dig for metals, make
clothes from the too-scanty materials
that will be at our disposal, build ma¬
chines, run and repair them; in short
— fashion a complete way of life, a
civilization in microcosm. Otherwise
we’ll die, miserably.”
“You paint a gloomy picture,” Claire
protested. “It is accurate enough, and
quite right, up to a certain point. But
you forget that not so long ago I, too,
was of this lily-handed group of whom
you speak so scornfully. Give them a
chance. They’ve never had to work, but
now that they have to, you’ll be sur¬
prised at the skills they'll develop, the
energy they'll display. Of course, there
INFRA-UNIVERSE
147
will be wasters, some who won’t fit in ;
but there won’t be many.”
“I hope you’re right,” Jim answered
gloomily. Then he turned his attention
to other points. “Granted that we make
a go of it, there is still the vaster prob¬
lem of the enveloping alien universe.
We’ll get accustomed in time to the
perpetual day of three fantastic suns, to
a season less year. But those two other
spheres in outer space hold a constant
threat. We have no means of defense
against their inhabitants.
“If Insar was a fair sample of their
kind, they are mightier far than our¬
selves, possessed of weapons beyond our
knowledge. And they can descend at
will from their own space into our cir¬
cumscribed limits, whereas we can’t even
dream of lifting ourselves above our
atmosphere. And Insar himself, though
not inimical, was an exile, thrust into
our universe by enemies obviously
mightier even than he.
“Should those enemies decide to in¬
vade our poor little colony — well — it
would be just too bad. However,” he
added lightly, "let’s not worry about
that angle until there is reason to worry.
And then” — he grinned — “I suppose it
will be too late. In the meantime, we’ll
have to perfect our organization for the
new life.”
They nodded approval. “Ben Hink-
man, of course, will be in charge of agri¬
culture, live stock, etc.,” Jim resumed.
“Dudley Nichols will start prospecting
and mining operations. There should
be iron in this neck of the woods.
Luckily, we can work our way around
the exposed flanks and even the bottom
of the earth. The old gravitational laws
still hold good as far as we are con¬
cerned. We seem to be a wholly self-
contained system. And I’m certain that
other metals will be found in the under
layers.”
“Nc aoubt of it,” Nichols assured
him.
“Matthew Draper, of course, will be
in complete control of all scientific
work,” Jim continued. “And our future,
if we are not to degenerate into the
beast, will depend on his work. Claire
Gray” — he smiled at her eager face —
“suppose you take over the horde of
females who infested Harbor House.
See what you can do with them.”
Her chin firmed. “You’ll be eating
those words, Jim Wentworth,” she told
him vehemently.
“Hope so.” He grunted skeptically.
“As for myself, I’ll supervise building
and construction. We’re all set now.
Let’s go.”
III.
FOR A MONTH of Earth time—
they had agreed to keep the old measure¬
ments and divisions of time for con¬
venience’s sake — the pitiful fragment
was a chaos of groaning activity. Men
who had never worked in their lives
were set to digging, with haphazard
implements, for metals, to plowing
fields, to felling trees and hacking them,
somehow, into crude wagons, ax han¬
dles, wheels, pulleys, containers.
Women whose shapely white hands
had been carefully masked in softening
unguents, under the directing eye of
Claire, and tutored by openly con¬
temptuous farm women, now combed
wool from shorn lambs; trundled old-
fashioned spinning wheels; wove un¬
sightly garments ; cooked ; drew water
from the lake, which, aside from the
wells, was their sole source of that
precious fluid; cleaned; washed dishes;
and milked cows.
At first all was enthusiasm, mis¬
directed, and with much wasted effort.
Then blisters came, and roughened
hands, and strained, hitherto unused
muscles. There were loud complaints
the second week, much more dangerous
mutterings, considerable malingering,
and, finally, open mutiny.
Jim acted at once, and decisively.
The ringleaders were warned they must
148
ASTOUNDING STORIES
work, or starve. They refused to heed
the warning. There was plenty of food
as yet; the hotel had been well-stocked,
and the fruit was ripe on the trees. They
were certain their friends would not
permit drastic action against them.
But Jim swooped down on them sud¬
denly, with a picked number of deter¬
mined, hard-fisted men he had carefully
gathered around him from the farmers,
the chauffeurs and stablemen, and some
of the younger collegians. Kicking and
protesting, men and women alike, they
were shoved into creaking carts, and
hauled incontinently away from the
hotel grounds, while their former
friends and acquaintances watched sul¬
lenly, but made no mo/e to interfere.
They were dumped at the very edge
of the little kingdom, where it had been
torn loose from its mother Earth. It
was a wilderness of jagged rocks and
barren, exposed clay, with a steep climb
over the edge to the angular bereave¬
ments on the other side.
A half dozen stout fellows were left
as guards to keep them from returning
to the fleshpots, great staves in their
hands to enforce obedience. They were
mainly the porters and handy men of the
hotel, and they had old scores to settle
with the recalcitrants. They would have
positively welcomed a forcible attempt
to break through their cordon.
“O. K. !” Jim told the outcasts cheer¬
ily, as his caravan turned to go back
from the dismal encampment. “I don’t
believe in forced labor. You don’t have
to work. But you can’t expect to share
the community food, shelter and cloth¬
ing if you don’t. Good-by!"
For a whole day the mutineers held
out. They stormed and pleaded ; they
cursed and wheedled. The guards were
adamant. Hunger gnawed at them ; the
jagged rocks were torture to their soft
flesh. Then they gave in, begged to
return, promised to do their share there¬
after.
They did. They were a strangely
humble lot for a long time. There were
no more mutinies.
GRADUALLY order grew out of
chaos. Unskilled men and women
learned new skills, slowly and crudely
at first, but steadily and surely. Claire
in particular was proud of the progress
her once-wealthy women made. She
called on Jim to apologize for his wither¬
ing remarks. He did it with a good
grace, publicly and with much humor.
They outdid themselves after that.
The crops were harvested, threshed,
and carefully stored away. Seed was
reserved for new plantings. There
would be four crops in a year of Earth
time. Day was eternal, and it was al¬
ways warm. The three fantastic, gyrat¬
ing suns overhead never set. It was
hardest to habituate themselves to the
lack of sheltering darkness, but Jim
solved it by setting aside rigid periods
for sleep, in quarters that were closely
shaded against the light.
The cattle, the sheep, the swine, were
vigilantly guarded and bred for in¬
crease. Only the excess was butchered
for food. The corps of miners, under
Nichols, soon uncovered a vein of iron.
It was taken out laboriously with picks,
crowbars and shovels, the implements
of the hotel and farmhouses. The mine
president set up makeshift crushers,
smelters.
Charcoal at first was the only fuel
available. The gasoline of the cars, of
the solitary filling station on the high¬
way, was conserved as being more
precious than diamonds. So there was
great rejoicing when a small vein of coal
was discovered. Nichols estimated it at
about five thousand tons. Not very
much, but of infinite value in the pres¬
ent. Once the iron was smelted and
worked into more adequate digging
tools and machines, the work progressed
more rapidly. On the under side was
found copper, tin, and others of the
elements.
INFRA-UNIVERSE
149
Draper fished out of the wreckage of
his laboratory much of his apparatus.
Most of it could be patched up and
repaired. He concentrated in the begin¬
ning, however, on chemistry rather than
on physics. It would be of more im¬
mediate use. But in his spare moments
he worked diligently on the fashioning
of a telescope. He took the lenses from
his great cameras, ground them to meet
his purpose, and fitted them into a tube
that Nichols had made for him.
"If we are to survive,” he told Jim,
“we must know more about the silver
sphere and that more remote green
disk.”
Jim squinted upward. The strange
trinity of suns had become a common¬
place to them by now. But not so the
flashing sphere with its ever-shifting
colors. It was a beautiful sight, swing¬
ing in endless flight around the central
suns. They speculated constantly on the
secrets it contained ; whether it was in¬
habited ; and if so, by what manner of
strange beings.
Claire insisted that it was the home
of Insar and his kind. But the strange
orb withheld its secrets. It swam in the
cerise universe without a sign that there
was life, or activity, or intelligence on its
gleaming surface. Few of the little
colony paid much heed to the tinier and
much more remote green globe. It did
not seem to move at all ; day in and day
out it held its position, solitary, with¬
drawn.
“I wonder what happened to Insar,”
Jim meditated aloud. He was tired, and
there were far more immediate problems
to be solved. “He seemed to think that
the fate of this universe, and possibly of
our own, depended on his swift return.”
Draper shivered a little. Even at this
late date any mention of the strange this-
universe entity affected him like that.
That period of their mutual identity, and
his submergence, would remain a
hideous nightmare for him to his dying
day. Yet, strangely enough, he held no
rancor against Insar. The latter had
acted thus from the necessities of the
occasion, had carefully released him
when his usefulness was at an end. He
said nothing, but continued to tinker
with his telescope.
TWO MONTHS had passed. Sev¬
eral marriages had taken place.
Romance and love have a habit of
flourishing under the most untoward
conditions. Children played happily in
the fields, on the lawns, already forget¬
ful of their former universe. Even for
the older people, Mother Earth, the
■ universe of the hvpershell, was becom¬
ing a memory. Life is tenacious.
More complex machinery was being
constructed ; more ambitious plans were
put into effect. Hands hardened ; bodies
grew tough and wiry ; laughter was more
wholesome than it had been on Earth.
Strangely enough, sickness diminished.
There were ailments, it is true, but a
good many diseases were wholly con¬
spicuous by their absence. The common
cold, for instance. There had not been
a single case of it since their tremendous
' hegira.
“Queer, isn’t it?” said Draper.
“We’ve had cases of the other germ
diseases.”
“Colds are not caused by germs,”
Jim corrected. “The modern theory is
that they are caused by viruses — the so-
called filterable viruses that pass through
the pores of the most closely meshed
porcelains. It has even been suggested
that they are of ultra-virus origin ; those
strange submicroscopic bodies that are
of molecular size. Hello !” He stopped
short, frowned.
“What’s the matter?” Clair asked in
some surprise.
“Matter enough,” he answered slowly.
“Remember we had about decided that
there was a remarkable similarity in
structure between Insar and the ultra¬
viruses. There’s a clue somewhere in
ISO
ASTOUNDING STORIES
that. There are none of them here, in
this universe. Or if there are - ”
HE WAS interrupted in the pursuit
of his thought by a great shout. It
shattered the air, whirled them around
as if on pivots. Dudley Nichols was
running up the path to their laboratory.
His face was a gray mask of horror ; his
hands plucked desperately at his side.
In the distance, where colonists had been
working in the fields, there were more
shouts, shrieks, a sudden uproar.
Jim was the first out of the door.
Claire was on his heels; Draper imme¬
diately behind. “For Heaven’s sake,
Nichols! What’s happened?”
The man ran as a drunken man runs,
insanely, wabbling from side to side,
clawing at himself with raking fingers.
“It’s got me,” he shrieked. “Help!
Help!” Then he fell, writhing and
twisting, to the ground.
Jim raced toward him. From the
hotel — headquarters for the little com¬
munity — a tumult rose — screams, curses,
strangled cries. A window crashed open
with a distant spatter of glass. A tiny,
doll-like figure of a woman poised a mo¬
ment in the broken frame, writhed, and
jumped headlong to the ground. There
were four intervening floors.
Nichols was suddenly still. Some¬
thing formless, structureless, like an
enormous slug, clung viscously to his
side. Even as Jim stared in horror, it
seemed to ooze into the body of the
motionless man, as if he were so much
porus blotting paper.
“My Lord !” moaned Draper. “It’s
Insar, come back! This time he’s got
Nichols !”
“Not if I can help it,” Jim said tightly.
His automatic was somehow in his hand
as he raced again for the fallen man.
He had no clear plan of action, but he
knew that this time Insar had enfolded
a human being for a purpose far more
dreadful than when on Earth. That is,
if it was Insar.
Behind him came a terrible cry. “Jim !
Help! It’s got me! Help!” He lashed
around with despair twisting his feet,
clotting the blood in his veins. That had
been Claire’s anguished scream.
He saw a sight that froze the very
marrow in his bones. The air was thick
with great blobs of formless, viscid
matter. There were hundreds of them,
thousands, and the number increased
every second. Claire seemed rooted to
the ground, her features contorted with
suffering, her eyes wide with a dreadful
terror. A mass clung to her shoulders,
was sinking swiftly out of sight, into
her slender form. Draper sank slowly
to the soil, shuddered, and lay still.
Claire flung out her slender arms in
mute appeal ; her mouth opened, but no
sound issued.
“Coming, Claire ! Hold tight !’’ he
shouted futilely, and catapulted toward
her. He had flung the useless gun
away; if he fired, he would kill the girl
as well as the terrible entity that was
taking possession of her.
But even as he reached her, she had
slipped out of his grasp. The inter¬
stitial admixture was complete. The eyes
that gazed malevolently, triumphantly
at him, were no longer Claire’s. They
were the eyes of an alien being.
She rose straight up into the air, still
watching with mocking gaze. He caught
at the hem of her dress, pulled with
every ounce of despairing strength. The
dress ripped. The girl went steadily up,
accelerating, faster, faster.
He cried vainly after her, shouted in
a delirium of rage, heedless of the
steadily dropping entities that fell like
great drops of rain around him. She
was already out of hearing, growing
smaller, tinier. Already she had pierced
the enveloping atmosphere, was out into
the unknown space beyond.
He stood stock-still, paralyzed. She
was gone, vanished from sight. But
above something else had happened. The
three suns still pursued their compli-
INFRA-UNIVERSE
151
cated pattern as before. But the great
silver sphere, with its studded knobs,
was fleeing out into the illimitable
inane, quitting the multicolored trinity
with a speed almost that of light.
The universe was no longer cerise;
a dull, thick green pervaded everything,
misted the atmosphere with its clammy
hue. A startled cry burst involuntarily
from Jim’s laboring chest. The green
orb was no longer infinitely remote. Its
featureless smoothness blanketed the
void, yawned down at him with dark,
lusterless green. Even the colorful suns
paled in the sinister shadow of its swift
approach.
Jim Wentworth was alone — a help¬
less, futile human in an inimical uni¬
verse. Draper and Nichols, or rather
the beings who had invaded them, had
followed Claire into the terrible void.
Silence lay thick on what had been, mo¬
ments before, a populous colony. No
one seemed alive. And all around him
the viscous entities were still dropping.
He ran for the gun he had cast away.
Blind, savage fury rocked his senses.
Claire was gone, so were the others, car¬
ried to an unknown fate ! He alone was
left. Soon they’d get him, too. But
he’d die fighting. He’d see if Earthly
bullets couldn't smash these infra-uni¬
verse devils. He’d show them !
A huge, crystalline mass swept
straight for him. ile had bent over to
retrieve the automatic. The next in¬
stant he was infolded. The sticky sub¬
stance twisted around his head, blinded
him. He cried out, struck out vainly
with threshing hands. It did no good.
Swiftly, the strange entity oozed into
his body, absorbing through every pore.
He was caught, irretrievably. He tried
to run, couldn't. Volition, movement,
swept away from him. He fought to
retain the integrity of his identity
against the invading mind. It was a
hopeless fight. His limbs, his thoughts,
his mind, were overborne. He was no
more Jim Wentworth. He was -
(To be concluded.)
Science Discussions
As I proceed with the thought of the forthcoming transition of
Brass Tacks to Science Discussions, three spontaneous bursts of
approval lie before me. These three letters must have been mailed
almost within minutes of the time last month’s issue was available!
They come from people new to Brass Tacks, and that is significant.
I want our whole vast reading circle to be interested in the
Readers’ Department of Astounding. I want every one of you to
feel free to suggest subjects for discussion. I want to be able to
list these subjects and perhaps assign one month to be devoted to
each.
There is no reason why Astounding should not serve as an
exponent of scientific advancement through the contributed discus¬
sions. I, for one, am beginning to feel a keen interest in the pro¬
jected forum.
We have always faced an unwarranted bias on the part of a large
portion of the educational world against “pulp” magazines as a class.
This in spite of the fact that among our supporters I contact en¬
gineers, chemists, doctors, and more than a few college and uni¬
versity professors of the kindred sciences.
I am going to break down this opposition bit by bit until we
are recognized as a distinct corollary of the sciences.
Does this mean a lessening of interest? Absolutely the reverse.
Nothing on this terrestrial sphere of ours is more fascinating than
the oriented studies of geology, entogeny, chemistry, and astronomy.
Our fiction weaves a spell by projecting, through logic, the basic
truths presented factually through the various educational media.
If we supplement this fictional presentation with science articles in
a popular vein, we shall be doing the greatest thing any magazine
has ever accomplished.
TOP-NOTCH magazine has served as the cradle of modern
literature. The great and near great of modern fiction have, almost
without exception, found their way to fame through its pages.
We must so plan that twenty years hence it will be said that
Astounding Stories has served as the cradle of modern science. It
must be said that the great and near great in science first nurtured
and presented their thoughts and theories through the Science Dis¬
cussions pages. And it will be said, for it will be true!
Write to me now and give me your reaction to the transition.
I still want your opinions on the stories — and will tabulate these
responses in a chart if you wish it. But — have you a subject to
suggest for Science Discussions?
The Editor.
s
X.
154
ASTOUNDING STORIES
156
ASTOUNDING STORIES
BRASS TACKS
157
158
ASTOUNDING STORIES
BRASS TACKS
159
160
ASTOUNDING STORIES
Smoking Camels brings a sense of well-being
a thousand Smoking Camels speeds up the
YOU eat
meals a year! Food is va¬
ried. Place and time often dif¬
fer. Thanks to Camels, you can
help digestion meet these
changing conditions easily.
flow of digestive fluids. You
enjoy food— and have a feeling
of ease after eating. Mealtime
or any time — make it Camels.
They don’t get on your nerves.
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